"Obama attempts to shift focus back to economy; Speeches seek to frame debate; budget deadlines may spark rancor" by Julie Pace | Associated Press, July 23, 2013
WASHINGTON — The address Wednesday at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., will be the first in a series of economic speeches that White House aides say Obama intends to deliver over the next several weeks ahead of key budget deadlines in the fall. A new fiscal year begins in October, and the government will soon hit its borrowing limit.
The speech will be given just a week before Congress is scheduled to leave for its monthlong August recess and is designed to build public pressure on lawmakers....
Build pressure on them as they head out of town for a month? This is just more BS from BO!
The president also will talk about the economy in Warrensburg, Mo., on Wednesday, then fly to Jacksonville, Fla., on Thursday to make his pitch to Floridians.
Yeah, thanks for adding to the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming, or so you tell me. And you want me to pay a carbon tax on top of my gas tax for my piece of crap putt-putt?
If Obama’s new focus on the economy sounds familiar, that is because he has done it several times since the first year of his presidency.
Some came with catchy slogans....
Just a few months ago, Obama was headlining the ‘‘Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity Tour.’’
I don't know how much longer I can read this pos public relations announcement.
So far there is no slogan attached to the White House’s latest initiative....
No initiatives are expected to be announced.
Then this is all -- once again -- much ado about political show fooleys!
However, aides say there will be some fresh policy proposals in a series of follow-up speeches planned through September....
Congressional Republicans, who continue to be a roadblock for many of the president’s economic proposals, dismissed the White House’s new public relations push....
So do I.
‘‘We’ve seen this song and dance before,’’ said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican. ‘‘Whether it’s his health care law, his job-destroying energy policies, or the mountain of regulations piling up, it’s the president’s own policies that are responsible for this new normal of weak economic growth and high unemployment.’’
In the face of inaction in Congress, Obama on Monday urged his most ardent supporters to mount a summertime show of support. He spoke at a Washington meeting of Organizing for Action, a group formed after his 2012 reelection campaign with the goal of backing his policy agenda....
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Obama's Nonprofit PAC
Organizing for Action, which is run by former White House and campaign aides, has tried to build public pressure on lawmakers to enact Obama’s second-term agenda. The group raised more than $8 million between April and June.
Also see: Slow Saturday Special: Obama's Poor PAC
I sure hope the Justice Department isn't involved.
Democrats are trying to build momentum on several issues, including: an immigration overhaul, which cleared the Senate but faces an uncertain future in the House; expanded gun background checks, which are stalled in Congress; and measures to curb climate change, which the president outlined last month.
See: House Close to Comprehensive Immigration Reform
I'm now told it is breaking down over amnesty, but we'll see.
Also see: Sunday Globe Special: Aurora Anniversary
I was thinking of watching a movie later as the GBGT-A picks up steam.
Obama also is working to implement complex elements of his health care law despite continued resistance from Republicans and headaches over delays and glitches.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: New Hampshire Republicans Are Mean
Because Obamacare was badly written, is an economic catastrophe, and a flop with the American people. Sorry for the diagnosis, and you are free to get a second opinion.
The timing of Obama’s latest economic push underscores the degree to which jobs and growth have been overshadowed in Washington since the president began his second term.
That has been driven in part by the White House, which has invested significant time on other areas of the president’s agenda, including the failed effort to enact stricter gun laws and the push for immigration reform.
Yeah, I heard about those. This economy thing is just to get the people's minds off the failures in policy and scandals swarming around this administration -- and then lies about the economy, too.
A series of foreign policy crises, including the Syrian civil war and Egyptian coup, have also competed for the White House’s attention.
Yeah, they have lost Syria and Egypt is unstable at the moment.
All the while, the economy has slowly but steadily improved.
So sayeth the corporate pre$$ narrative.
The housing market is coming back, the stock market continues to rise, and consumer confidence is near its highest levels of Obama’s presidency. Nationwide unemployment is also falling, though at 7.6 percent, it still remains high.
All manipulated and selected bulls***.
But a new round of fiscal deadlines threatens to upend that progress, adding urgency to the White House’s desire to get the economy back on Washington’s radar while at the same time trying to get the public to side with the president’s economic vision.
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Setting up that job market for you even as he buries you in student debt to pay off government deficits:
"Obama urges graduates not to fear government; Delivers message of optimism as economy ralles" by Jackie Calmes | New York Times, May 06, 2013
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Acknowledging that commencement addresses are no place for partisanship, President Obama nonetheless hovered close to that political line on Sunday, telling graduates at Ohio State University to ignore antigovernment movements that ‘‘gum up the works.’’
Instead, he said, they should aspire to be citizens who are engaged in their government and who value both individual rights and community responsibilities.
‘‘Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems,’’ Obama told the crowd at the Ohio State commencement ceremony, which totaled almost 60,000 people. ‘‘They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.’’
Was this before Snowden (answer: yes)?
You know whose voice to reject now right, kids?
About 60,000 graduates, relatives, and friends turned the university’s huge football stadium into a sea of red and gray, the school’s colors.
Obama noted it was his fifth visit to the campus in the past year, reflecting the importance of Ohio and young voters to his reelection in November. The president held his first major rally of the 2012 campaign at Ohio State.
But this was the president’s first trip here in his young second term, which has already faced setbacks in Congress over the budget, an immigration overhaul, and legislation to reduce gun violence.
Obama is now confronting the escalating violence in the Middle East and a push to overcome Republican opposition to an overhaul of immigration law that would provide a path to citizenship to about 11 million people who are in the country illegally.
On Wednesday in Austin, Texas, Obama will resume his occasional trips outside Washington to press for long-blocked initiatives supporting infrastructure projects, education, and a higher minimum wage. He plans to make more trips every few weeks.
And the greenhous gase.... pfffffft!
In the commencement speech Sunday, Obama mostly delivered an address that was a pitch for good citizenship and an optimistic message for the graduates about their futures as the economy recovers from the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression....
I'm sorry I've tuned him out, kids; I pay attention to policy, but he's nothing but a smooth-talking and good-looking front man for the monied interests that runs him and that town.
The president described the graduates’ generation as having ‘‘a deep sense of service that makes me optimistic for our future.’’ Ohio State’s class of 2013, he noted, included military veterans, volunteers for the Peace Corps and Teach for America, and entrepreneurs already running start-up companies. Their lives, he said, started as the Cold War was ending and the Internet age was beginning, and they came of age as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, wars, recession, and technological advances transformed America.
‘‘You have been tested and you’ve been tempered by events that your parents and I never imagined we’d see when we sat where you sit,’’ he said. ‘‘And yet despite all this, or more likely because of it, yours has become a generation possessed with that most American of ideas — that people who love their country can change it for the better.’’
I tried.
Obama urged the graduates to find not just a career but a cause for the greater good....
There is wisdom there somewhere.
The administration believes Americans are still concerned about the economy, despite some recent positive news on job creation. A government report on Friday lowered the unemployment rate a notch to 7.5 percent, a four-year low that offered hope that the US economy is healthier than many had feared....
Somebody say something?
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Speaking at another school:
"At Morehouse ceremony, Obama honors King, notes graduates’ responsibilities" New York Times, May 20, 2013
ATLANTA — President Obama came to Morehouse College, the alma mater of Martin Luther King Jr., on Sunday to tell graduates, 50 years after King’s landmark speech in Washington, that “laws, hearts, and minds have been changed to the point where someone who looks like you can serve as president of the United States.”
Obama paid tribute to Morehouse as the place where King first read the writings of Gandhi and absorbed the theory of civil disobedience....
He offended me again.
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Also see: Obama is right: US needs broader discussion on race
Tell it to the handful of families of young black men across America whose sons will be murdered by police tonight.
"Obama urges grads to uphold military’s honor" by Michael D. Shear | New York Times, May 25, 2013
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — President Obama used a commencement speech before Naval Academy graduates Friday to urge them to follow an “inner compass” and to warn that rising numbers of sexual assaults in the military threatened to erode America’s faith in the armed forces.
The president praised the military as the nation’s “most trusted institution,” but took note of the recent cases in which service members have been charged with sexual assault. He said those people “threaten the trust and discipline which makes our military strong.”
***********************
It was the second time Obama had addressed graduates of the academy, and he was welcomed with enthusiastic cheers....
“We still need to conduct precise, targeted strikes against terrorists before they kill our citizens,” he said, noting the end of the Iraq War and next year’s expected end of the US role in Afghanistan. But, he said, “we need to stay ready for the whole range of threats.”
Four years after the president’s first visit here, the specter of the growing number of sexual assaults in the armed forces gave the speech more of a somber tone.
Not to minimize the issue with the ladies; however, not as worried about the suicide epidemic among soldiers, sir?
Obama said that incidents of sexual assault threatened to undermine the military’s credibility just as failures of integrity undermine trust in politicians, financial institutions, and government workers.
The trust is gone. Don't you guys see that, or is it the bubble?
“As we’ve seen again in recent days,” Obama said, apparently referring to the actions of officials at the Internal Revenue Service in targeting conservative groups, “It only takes the misconduct of a few to erode the public’s trust in their institutions.”
IRS-gate, DOJ-gate, Benghazi-gate, NSA-gate, are all pretty much forgotten by the corporate AmeriKan media and Globe right now.
He referred directly to the sexual assaults, telling the midshipmen that “if we want to restore the trust the American people deserve to have in their institutions, then we all have to do our part.”
Does that ever come back, ladies?
The issue has become a major concern following several incidents, some of them involving military officials who were supposed to be in charge of preventing sexual assaults....
Related: The Pentagon's Next War
I'll be fighting that one soon.
At the Naval Academy, Obama also affirmed his plans to redefine the way America wages the fight against terrorism. In a speech at the National Defense University on Thursday, the president said the country needed to continue to attack terror cells while getting off the war footing it has been on for more than a decade.
Related: One-Day Wonder: Presidential Power
That message is most likely to be of intense interest to the graduates as they prepare for a military careers. Obama has largely ended the war in Iraq and is winding down US involvement in Afghanistan, where troops are slated to come home by the end of next year.
Concerns about sexual harassment and sexual assault in the military are not new. In 1991, dozens of women were assaulted by members of the Navy and the Marines at a Las Vegas Hotel where the Tailhook Association was having its annual convention. Tailhook is a nonprofit association that supports naval aviators.
The resulting scandal raised the issue of sexual assaults in the military to new heights. But....
Nothing changed.
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No change here, either, despite the headline:
"Obama recasts war on terrorism" by Peter Baker | New York Times, May 24, 2013
WASHINGTON — Nearly a dozen years after the hijackings that transformed America, President Obama said Thursday that it was time to narrow the scope of the grinding battle against terrorists and begin the transition to a day when the country will no longer be on a war footing.
As he is expanding the spying!
Declaring that ‘‘America is at a crossroads,’’ the president called for redefining what has been a global war into a more targeted assault on terrorist groups threatening the United States. As part of a realignment of counterterrorism policy, he said, he would curtail the use of drones, recommit to closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, and seek new limits on his own war power.
I don't believe it. He could cease drone strikes with the sweep of a pen, and he could order Gitmo closed as commander-in-chief. This is more show fooley so we think he's ending wars.
In a much anticipated speech at the National Defense University, Obama sought to turn the page on the era that began Sept. 11, 2001, when the imperative of preventing terrorist attacks became both the priority and the preoccupation.
Yeah, except it turns out Muslims didn't do 9/11; Israel and her helpers in various western governments and intelligence agencies did.
Instead, the president suggested that the United States had returned to the state of affairs that existed before Al Qaeda toppled the World Trade Center, when terrorism was a persistent but not existential danger. With Al Qaeda’s core now ‘‘on the path to defeat,’’ he argued, the nation must adapt.
(Blog editor really doesn't know what to say regarding the lie and the hopelessly incorrigible mouthpiece media)
‘‘Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue,’’ Obama said. ‘‘But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. It’s what our democracy demands.’’
The president’s speech reignited a debate over how to respond to the threat of terrorism that has polarized the capital for years.
Listen to 'em! It's polarized the capital! No it hasn't! The war budgets, the spying budgets, whatever Israel wants, sail through with huge majorities!
Republicans contended that Obama was declaring victory prematurely and underestimating an enduring danger, while liberals complained that he had not gone far enough in ending what they see as the excesses of the Bush era.
Liberals are not listened to, or haven't you learned that by now?
The precise ramifications of his shift were less clear than the lines of argument, however, because the new policy guidance he signed remains classified, and other changes he embraced require congressional approval. Obama, for instance, did not directly mention in his speech that his new order would shift responsibility for drones more toward the military and away from the CIA.
Does it really matter anymore?
But the combination of his words and deeds foreshadowed the course he hopes to take in the remaining 3½ years of his presidency to leave his successor a profoundly different national security landscape than the one he inherited in 2009.
A vastly expanded one.
While President George W. Bush saw the fight against terrorism as the defining mission of his presidency, Obama has always viewed it as one priority among many at a time of wrenching economic and domestic challenges.
‘‘Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a boundless ‘global war on terror,’ ’’ he said, ‘‘but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.
‘‘Neither I, nor any president, can promise the total defeat of terror. We will never erase the evil that lies in the hearts of some human beings, nor stamp out every danger to our open society. But what we can do — what we must do — is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger to us, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all the while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend.’’
Some Republicans expressed alarm about Obama’s shift, saying it was a mistake to go back to the days when terrorism was seen as a manageable law enforcement problem rather than a dire threat.
Related: Obama's Syrian Shift
Also see: Obama Orders Invasion of Syria
And they are still not happy?
‘‘The president’s speech today will be viewed by terrorists as a victory,’’ said Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee. ‘‘Rather than continuing successful counterterrorism activities, we are changing course with no clear operational benefit.’’
Senator John McCain of Arizona said he still agreed with Obama about closing the Guantanamo prison, but he called the president’s assertion that Al Qaeda was on the run ‘‘a degree of unreality that to me is really incredible.’’
The liberal discontent with Obama was on display even before his speech ended. Medea Benjamin, a cofounder of the antiwar group Code Pink, who was in the audience, shouted at the president to release prisoners from Guantanamo, halt CIA drone strikes, and apologize to Muslims for killing so many of them.
‘‘Abide by the rule of law!’’ she yelled as security personnel removed her from the auditorium. ‘‘You’re a constitutional lawyer!’’
She may be controlled-opposition, but someone had to say it!
Colenel Morris D. Davis, a former chief prosecutor at Guantanamo who has become a leading critic of the prison, waited until after the speech to express disappointment that Obama was not more proactive.
‘‘It’s great rhetoric,’’ he said. ‘‘But now is the reality going to live up to the rhetoric?’’
Never does.
Still, some counterterrorism experts saw it as the natural evolution of the conflict after more than a decade.
‘’This is both a promise to an end to the war on terror, while being a further declaration of war, constrained and proportional in its scope,’’ said Juan Carlos Zarate, a counterterrorism adviser to Bush.
The new classified policy guidance imposes tougher standards for when drone strikes can be authorized, limiting them to targets who pose ‘‘a continuing, imminent threat to Americans’’ and cannot feasibly be captured, according to government officials. The guidance also begins a process of phasing the CIA out of the drone war and shifting operations to the Pentagon.
The guidance expresses the principle that the military should be in the lead and responsible for taking direct action even outside traditional war zones like Afghanistan, officials said.
Kennedy-esque if it is going to put covert operations under control of the Pentagon.
But Pakistan, where the CIA has waged a robust campaign of air assaults on terrorism suspects in the tribal areas, will be grandfathered in for a transition period and remain under CIA control.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: Pakistan Demanded Drone Strikes
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UPDATE:
"GOP opposes winding down war on terrorism" by Sheryl Stolberg | New York Times, May 27, 2013
WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers on Sunday assailed President Obama’s vision for winding down the war on terrorism, using talk show appearances to accuse him of misunderstanding the threat in a way that will embolden unfriendly nations.
“We show this lack of resolve, talking about the war being over,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “What do you think the Iranians are thinking? At the end of the day, this is the most tone-deaf president I ever could imagine.”
******************
Democrats appearing on the television Sunday, including Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, praised Obama for what they view as a necessary recalibrating of civil liberties and national security interests.
“We have to balance our values,” Wasserman Schultz said on ABC’s “This Week.”
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I'm so glad I no longer watch those shows.
"Federal court upholds Bush-era smog rule; Mass. among states that sued" by Dina Cappiello | Associated Press, July 24, 2013
WASHINGTON — A federal court on Tuesday upheld a 2008 air pollution standard the Obama administration vowed to strengthen but later reversed itself and kept in place.
The US Court of Appeals in Washington rejected arguments that the ozone standard for public health set by former President George W. Bush was either too weak or too strong. The Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific advisory panel at the time said the standard should have been more stringent to adequately protect health.
But referencing “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” the court on Tuesday said it cannot demand EPA get things ‘‘just right’’ when it comes to health.
?????
However, the court ruled that the agency would have to revisit a secondary standard aimed at protecting forests and other vegetation from ozone pollution.
So when it comes to humans the court said f*** our health, but when it comes to the plants.... ????
The decision marked a partial defeat for environmental groups, Massachusetts, 11 other states, and two cities that had sued the agency in 2008 to strengthen the standards, only to resume the legal battle after Obama decided not to toughen them.
But the ruling was also a mixed bag for the state of Mississippi, which along with an association of industrial groups, argued against the standards because they were too stringent.
Ozone, the main ingredient in smog, is a powerful lung irritant that can cause asthma and other lung ailments. Smog is created when emissions from cars, power and chemical plants, refineries and other factories mix in sunlight and heat.
Related: Shale is Fool's Gold
The Obama administration proposed in January 2010 to tighten the smog standard at a cost of $90 billion a year. But 18 months later, the White House tabled the plans after businesses and congressional Republicans said it would harm the economy. A review of the standard was supposed to be finished this year, but EPA has missed that deadline....
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Is it just me, or is it hotter than hell in here?
"Senate committee approves Obama’s envoy selections
WASHINGTON — In a voice vote, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee advanced the nominations of five senior diplomats, including former White House adviser Samantha Power for UN ambassador and former State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland for assistant secretary of state for Europe....
In her confirmation hearing, Power faced scrutiny over comments she made as a journalist and human rights campaigner perceived as critical of the United States or Israel.
Related: The Power of Israel
Nuland was questioned by several GOP senators over what she knew about last year’s deadly Benghazi attack.
Another scandal buried by the Boston Globe.
Obama’s Homeland Security nominee being investigated
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s choice to be the number two official at the Homeland Security Department is under investigation for his role in helping a company run by a brother of Hillary Rodham Clinton, former secretary of state, the Associated Press has learned.
Alejandro Mayorkas, director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, is being investigated for his role in helping the company secure an international investor visa for a Chinese executive, according to congressional officials briefed on the investigation.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details of the investigation.
Mayorkas was named by Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office as a target in an investigation involving the foreign investor program, according to an e-mail sent to lawmakers late Monday.
In that e-mail, the inspector general’s office said, ‘‘At this point in our investigation, we do not have any findings of criminal misconduct.’’
White House press secretary Jay Carney referred questions to the inspector general’s office, which said that the inquiry is in its preliminary stage.
The program, known as EB-5, allows foreigners to get visas if they invest $500,000 to $1 million in projects or businesses that create jobs for US citizens....
Related: Sunday Globe Special: H1-B Hijacking
Some trick.
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Meanwhile, his choice for number one of the department is the architect and author of New York's racial profiling stop-and-frisk law.
Where is Al Sharpton's paid-for-by-the-Justice-Department protests when you need them?
