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President Obama Acknowledges Anniversaries Of Veterans Administration; Disabilities Act By Attending Events
Nigerian President Visits With President Obama
President Barack Obama wel- comed Nigeria's president, Muhammadu Buhari to the White House on Monday, lend- ing a personal endorsement
after the coun- Nigeria’s recently elected president, Muham- try's first ever madu Buhari met with President Obama on Mon- democratic day.
transition.
The President praised the March vote as "an affirmation of Nige-
ria's commitment to democracy."
Buhari, who ruled as a military strongman between 1983 and
1985, returns to office facing a Boko Haram insurgency that has re- sulted in the deaths of at least 15,000 people and displaced 1.5 mil- lion.
Since 2009 the group has been trying to establish an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria.
Buhari's visit was foreshadowed by a uptick in terror attacks, including suicide bombings in neighboring Cameroon and Chad.
Rights groups say atrocities have been committed both by Boko Haram and the Nigerian military.
U. S. laws banning the transfer of weapons to countries suspected of rights abuses have sometimes pushed a wedge between the two allies.
The Obama administration last year blocked the sale of Cobra at- tack helicopters to Nigeria, hampering cooperation amid efforts to find the hundreds of still-missing kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls.
President Herbert Hoover signed an executive order 85 years ago establish- ing the Veterans Administra- tion, a federal agency designed to "consolidate and coordinate Government ac- tivities affecting war veter- ans." President Barack Obama marked the anniver- sary, by addressing the Vet- erans of Foreign Wars convention in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, his first appearance in three years.
The President delivered a blunt message to Vets about the deal with Iran: We don’t need another Iraq.
In both a strong speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Pittsburgh and a taping of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” President Obama cast critics of his diplomacy as the same kind of misguided warmongers who pushed for the invasion of Iraq during George W. Bush’s presidency.
“We’re hearing the echoes of some of the same policies and mindset that failed us in the past,” the President said in Pittsburgh. His loudest critics, he added, are “the same folks who were so quick to go to war in Iraq and said it would take a few months.”
The administration is working to make clear its po- sition on a number of differ- ent fronts by engaging critics directly. The administration will begin a series of classi- fied, members-only briefings on Capitol Hill in the coming days. Secretary of State John Kerry, Energy Secre-
President Obama accompanied by Vice President Biden spoke at the 25th Anniversary reception of the Disabilities Act on Monday.
The President speaks at the Veterans Convention in Pittsburgh.
tary Ernest Moniz and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew met with senators on Wednesday and held two dis- cussions in the House on Wednesday and Thursday, at the invitation of House Mi- nority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Also on Tuesday, the
White House launched @TheIranDeal, a Twitter handle designed to engage the public and correct mis- conceptions about the deal.
In recent weeks, the Pres- ident and his aides have pre- sented the negotiations with Iran as a choice between peacefully preventing a nu- clear Iran and going to war with the Islamic Republic.
Of course the critics are largely Republicans, and his political strategies are to make sure the Iran Deal has the support of enough con- gressional Democrats to sus- tain a presidential veto.
Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, threw his support behind the deal on Tuesday, saying the adminis- tration “negotiated this agreement with a single focus — prevent Iran from getting any closer to obtaining a nu- clear weapon. They achieved that goal.”
But other Democrats who say they support diplomacy have expressed concerns about the final deal. For ex- ample, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told a town hall au- dience over the weekend that he saw the accord as merely “managing” Iran’s nuclear development instead of dis- mantling its facilities.
President Obama Appears On Jon Stewart Show Before Host’s Departure
President Obama made his 7th appearance on the popular show, The Daily Show, with host Jon Stewart.
President Barack Obama stopped by The Daily Show to say goodbye to show host, Jon Stewart on Tues- day night, just two weeks ahead of the his final taping on Aug. 6.
In his seventh appearance on the show, the president said he's proud of the work he's done during his time in office but, added that there's still "a bunch of other things we want to get done."
"You're always going to fall short, because if you're hitting your marks, that means you didn't set them high enough," said the President, who still has a year and a half left in the White House. "We don't score a touchdown every time, but
we move the ball forward." Like the rest of the world, the President is not happy about Stewart's departure from The Daily Show. "I can't believe you're leaving before me," he told the late-night host. "In fact, I'm issuing a new executive order that Jon Stewart cannot leave the
show."
On a more serious note the
President called out his critics on the deal with Iran, this time invoking President Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney. He mocked those who he said seem to believe that if “you had brought Dick Cheney to the negotiations, everything would be fine.
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