President Obama spoke to a group of disabled veterans today in Orlando Florida, telling them about initiatives the Federal government is taking to make their lives better. All in all, it was an impressive speech, receiving many applause from those in attendance. But it was an update the President gave at the end of his speech that caused many on Twitter to declare this speech “one of his best.”
Cory Remsburg and Family
The President spoke about Cory Remsbury, an Army Ranger who almost died in an attack. President Obama spoke about how he visited Cory in the hospital over three years ago and compared that visit to seeing Cory and his family recently. The special message the President so masterfully brought home from the Cory story is that “we never give up!”
We’re sure there were some tears flowing after his story.
At a White House news conference on Friday, Obama insisted that he does not have bad personal relations with Putin. The two men had a testy meeting in June in Northern Ireland and from the photos of them at the time, it looked as if they would both rather have been somewhere else.
“I know the press likes to focus on body language, and he’s got that kind of slouch, looking like the bored kid in the back of the classroom. But the truth is that when we’re in conversations together, oftentimes it’s very productive,” Obama said.
Putin’s sending of a telegram wishing former President George W. Bush well after a heart procedure this week was viewed by some Kremlin watchers as a sign that Putin was sending an implicit message to Obama.
The White House says Obama pulled out of the Moscow summit not just because of the Russian decision to grant asylum to Snowden, who is wanted in the United States to face espionage charges.
U.S. differences with Russia have piled up recently over Moscow’s support for the Syrian government in that country’s civil war, as well as human rights concerns and other grievances.
There was no immediate response from Moscow to Obama’s description of the Russian president.
President Barack Obama formally canceled a much-discussed visit to Moscow next month for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing a lack of progress in bilateral relations since Putin regained the presidency a year ago.
Obama will still attend a G-20 summit in St. Petersburg in early September, but now will go to Sweden beforehand instead of stopping in Moscow to meet with Putin, the White House announced.
“Following a careful review begun in July, we have reached the conclusion that there is not enough recent progress in our bilateral agenda with Russia to hold a U.S.-Russia Summit in early September,” a White House statement said.
It noted progress in relations with Russia during Obama’s first term, much of it when Dmitry Medvedev was president and Putin was prime minister. Putin regained the presidency in May 2012.
“Given our lack of progress on issues such as missile defense and arms control, trade and commercial relations, global security issues, and human rights and civil society in the last 12 months, we have informed the Russian government that we believe it would be more constructive to postpone the summit until we have more results from our shared agenda,” the White House said.
After leading Republicans swiftly rejected President Barack Obama’s new “grand bargain” proposal, which would lower corporate tax rates in exchange for more spending on infrastructure, the president responded Tuesday by calling for a substantive counter-offer.
“I am laying out my ideas to give the middle class a better shot in a 21st-century economy,” Obama said in a speech on the economy in Chattenooga, Tennessee. “Now it’s time for Republicans to lay out theirs.
“Putting all your eggs in the basket of an oil pipeline that may only create about 50 permanent jobs, and wasting the country’s time by taking something like 40 meaningless votes to repeal Obamacare isn’t a jobs plan,” he added.
President Barack Obama issued the following statement Sunday following the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial.
“The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. Not just for his family, or for any one community, but for America. I know this case has elicited strong passions. And in the wake of the verdict, I know those passions may be running even higher. But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken. I now ask every American to respect the call for calm reflection from two parents who lost their young son. And as we do, we should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to widen the circle of compassion and understanding in our own communities. We should ask ourselves if we’re doing all we can to stem the tide of gun violence that claims too many lives across this country on a daily basis. We should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this. As citizens, that’s a job for all of us. That’s the way to honor Trayvon Martin.”
– See more at: http://www.blacklegalissues.com/Article_Details.aspx?artclid=0a1af0ddb7#sthash.TQLMMBFn.dpuf
Video from the White House, explaining why Immigration reform is good for the economy. And because it’s good for the economy, chances are the Republicans in Congress will do all they can to dismantle and destroy it.
President Obama yesterday stood alone in the cramped Robben Island prison cell in South Africa that once held Nelson Mandela, gazing out at the blue sky through a barred window.
Obama, who says his political career was inspired by Mandela’s nonviolent fight against apartheid, again drew inspiration by touring the penal island with First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha.
Obama had visited before, but it was a new experience for the rest of his family.
“Nelson Mandela showed us that one man’s courage can move the world,” Obama said later in a speech at the University of Cape Town.
“There was something different about bringing my children. Malia’s now 15, Sasha is 12, and seeing them stand within the walls that once surrounded Nelson Mandela,” he said, “I knew this was an experience that they would never forget.”
The tour was led by Ahmed Kathrada, a former inmate and anti-apartheid activist imprisoned with Mandela.
Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years captive in the grim confines of cell 7B, where Obama entered alone and briefly reflected.
Mandela, 94, has been hospitalized in critical condition for three weeks with a lung infection.
With one scandal after another plaguing the halls of Washington these days, it may seem hard to keep track of each riveting controversy while trying to parse what the crises mean for the nation. And as new political outrages come to dominate the 24-hour news cycle, government scandals that at one point seemed like catastrophic disasters quickly start to fade into the background, appearing less and less relevant each day. This at least seems to be the fate of May’s IRS scandal, which at one point looked to be destined to bring down the Obama administration, or at least tarnish the president’s legacy. But now that the fiasco has been obscured by the NSA spying allegations and the resulting national dialogue over the role of whistleblowers, the once threatening IRS outrage slowly appears to be dripping into the history books. With one notable exception: the Tea Party organizations at the center of the ordeal, which look to be making a comeback thanks to the brouhaha.
Peaks and Losses
The Tea Party wave reached its peak in 2010, when voter discontent over the polarizing Obamacare legislation propelled several young, conservative lawmakers backed by the populist party into Congress during that year’s midterm elections. Since then, though, the anti-taxation coalition’s prestige and influence has waned, with less of their candidates earning government seats in the 2012 vote. As pundits proclaimed the end of the era of riled-up conservative activists, it looked like the once powerful Tea Party was doomed to political extinction.
And then the scandal hit. In mid-May, an audit conducted by the US Treasury showed that an IRS office in Cincinnati specifically targeted conservative organizations that had sought tax-exempt status. This revelation led to government inquiries, Congressional hearings and plenty of resignations as investigators and the media tried to figure out who ordered the extra scrutiny and which DC politicians were aware of it. Since then, Tea Party–affiliated groups have seen an uptick not just in media coverage, but in popular support and even funding.
Back on Track
Soon after the scandal hit, some Tea Party groups saw attendance to their meetings increase threefold. Organizers and leaders of the movement attribute this to the spotlight once again being flung at their non-government-intervention ideologies, especially since the debacle gave them a perfect illustration of Big Brother–like government overreach. Organizers also hope their message will now appeal to more centrist, moderate voters, who they hope are now made aware of the impact big government can have on their everyday lives.
And of course, there’s the money situation. Outrage over the targeting has led conservative donors to pump more cash into local grass-root Tea Party groups, as well as funds from national super PACs. Tea Party groups all over the nation have been more than happy to receive this sudden surge in corporate gifts. With the influx of cash, the Tea Party is looking to once again tackle head-on their big Washington white whale: health care legislation. Websites linked to the group have already popped up trying to link Democratic politicians who voted for Obamacare with the IRS scandal. Because the tax agency will be in charge of enforcing such Obamacare rules as penalties on people who don’t get health insurance under the individual mandate, Tea Party leaders are hoping that associating the seemingly bungling agency with vulnerable politicians will slow down (or maybe even halt) the state-by-state implementation of Obamacare.
Big Changes
The most obvious and talked-about consequences stemming from the IRS scandal is what will happen to the IRS itself. With Tea Party groups long calling for either a change in the agency’s tax policies or its outright abolition, the added scrutiny now being placed on the government service will have to result in some sort of transformation. Influential politicians such as Ohio’s Republican Senator Rob Portman have publicly berated the IRS for targeting groups based on their political beliefs while at the same time acknowledging that system as it currently stands is not working. These politicians have called for a review of policies affecting nonprofit status for political groups, if not the direct elimination of such status. Long-debated practices such as the amount of funds nonprofits can receive from super PACs and how much nonprofits can contribute to political causes will all now be under discussion. And in the end, these are the exact sorts of debates the Tea Party has been pushing for since its inception. So where analysts and pundits may see a scandal, the anti-taxation group has instead seen this fiasco for what it really is: a major political gift.
Credit for the nose dive in the president’s approval ratings goes to the Republican propaganda machine. I know they must be proud.
President Obama’s approval rating has plummeted eight points over the past month, as the White House continues to deal with a slew of controversies, according to a new poll released Monday.
Obama’s approval rating fell to 45% from 53%, his lowest rating in more than a year, a new CNN/ ORC International survey showed.
“It is clear that revelations about NSA surveillance programs have damaged Obama’s standing with the public, although older controversies like the IRS matter may have begun to take their toll as well,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said in a statement.
The poll, conducted last Tuesday through Thursday, also suggests that more than half of the public no longer trusts the President.
Only 49% of the public believes Obama is honest, the poll showed. In addition, 54% of those polled disapprove of the job Obama is doing as President — an increase of nine points from May.
The new ratings come just weeks after it was revealed that the National Security Administration has been monitoring cell-phone and Internet usage data to help prevent terror attacks.
President Obama dedicated this week’s address to the fathers across the nation, saying that nothing substitutes for the love and support of a parent in a child’s life.
Today we’re blessed to live in a world where technology allows us to connect instantly with just about anyone on the planet. But no matter how advanced we get, there will never be a substitute for the love and support and, most importantly, the presence of a parent in a child’s life. And in many ways, that’s uniquely true for fathers.
President Obama says that the United States Senate will soon take action to fix our broken immigration system with a commonsense bill. He also cautions that the new bill will not make everyone happy, not Democrats, not Republicans. But urges Congress to act quickly to pass the bill.
The bill before the Senate isn’t perfect. It’s a compromise. Nobody will get everything they want – not Democrats, not Republicans, not me. But it is a bill that’s largely consistent with the principles I’ve repeatedly laid out for commonsense immigration reform.
This bill would continue to strengthen security at our borders, increase criminal penalties against smugglers and traffickers, and hold employers more accountable if they knowingly hire undocumented workers. If enacted, it would represent the most ambitious enforcement plan in recent memory.
Hey, America, WE’RE AT WAR!!! This is No Ordinary War, but it’s still War just the same! Stop it with your Penny-Anny whining about “Privacy and Civil Liberties” being taken away. It was taken away after 9/11, less we forget. Immediately after we were attacked with the planes diving into buildings, the Bush Administration began wiretapping phone calls and emails because of potential threats from known and unknown al-Qaeda groups.
President Bush authorized a surveillance program in late 2001, allowing the NSA (National Security Agency) to monitor communications between the United States and foreign countries without court oversight when a party is believed to be linked to al-Qaeda. During the 2008 article that revealed President Bush’s tactics, Administration officials had acknowledged that the NSA program was broader, and intelligence sources had described a vast effort to collect and analyze telephone and e-mail communications that were later scrutinized by the government for desired information. Does this Ring A Bell? Fast Forward to Thursday, June 6th.
On Thursday, President Obama was slammed for doing the EXACT SAME THING George Bush did as President, yet Obama is being pummeled by some Right Wingers, some Democrats that seemed to have forgotten what Bush initiated after 9/11, by media outlets like the New York Times and Fox News (No Surprise There) and every day Americans who also have forgotten WE’RE AT WAR!!!
Collection of audio, video, email, photographic and Internet search usage of foreign nationals overseas who use any of the nine major Internet providers, including Microsoft, Google, Apple, Yahoo and others has also taken place.
Thursday was June 6th, the Commemoration of D-Day. On June 6th, 1944, the Great Theater of Battle was the Normandy invasion which was to liberate Europe from the stronghold of Adolf Hitler and the German war machine.
During WWII, we knew what the enemy looked like. Another battle was taking place thousands of miles away in Japan. We saw them coming in Big Ships across the oceans, hundereds of thousands of planes in the air and Tanks across the desert. Today, our enemy lives in caves but has the technological skills of a seasoned IBM’er.
They disguise themselves by blending in like you and me. By going to work everyday, or enrolling in schools, colleges, the Armed Services, they are unnoticed because they adopt our way of life. Then, without warning, the Fort Hood Shooting takes place. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire on his fellow servicemen, killing 13 and injuring 30. Then Sen. Joe Lieberman opined that Hasan was under personal stress and may have turned to Islamic Extremism.
And how about the Boston Marathon Bombers? The brothers, Dzokhar Tsarnaev, 19 and his brother who was killed in a gun battle with police in Boston, 26- year old Tamerlan, killed 3 and injured over 260 with pressure cooker bombs. The purpose of the attack after investigation and interrogation of young Dzokhar, Extreme Islamist beliefs and the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Don’t sleep America! There are many other ‘cell groups’ right here on our soil. And it takes a great deal of surveillance that WE Have No Idea About that HAS to be monitored.
To be sure, Obama didn’t launch the data-mining initiatives, which were started during the Bush administration, though he has expanded them. He had defenders Thursday ranging from California Sen. Feinstein, a liberal Democrat, to South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a conservative Republican. “It’s called protecting America,” Feinstein said.
Obama called it “a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand.” Yes, we demand our Freedoms but do we sacrifice Freedom over our Safety?
Senior administration officials defended the programs as critical tools and said the intelligence they yield is among the most valuable data the U.S. collects. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the Internet program, known as PRISM, can’t be used to intentionally target any Americans or anyone in the U.S, and that data accidentally collected about Americans is kept to a minimum.
At hearing of this story that NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN REPORTED, I asked several Verizon users their thoughts on the whole matter, one being my In-Law. She stated, “ I’ve got Nothing to hide so I’m not concerned”. A golf buddy stated he had concerns of how the government gathers our information but didn’t feel threatened since he was a law-abiding citizen. I always wonder why when it comes to things of this nature, people get all flushed and bothered. If you have Nothing to hide, why does it bother you so much?
In the name of Safety, I want All the Protection my Government can Provide for my family, friends and this Great Country. In the name of Freedom, We have to Allow some Inconveniences along the way.
The enemy has brand new ways of infiltration. We can’t always see them, but thank God we have people working to Cease and Desist ALL perpetrators who would do us harm.
And by the way, the reason I said this story should Never have been reported, it opens the eyes of the Enemy. Now, they have to regroup and change the way they were doing ‘business’. Because our government knew of their actions, their mode of communication, their habits, they too have heard this story. We’re back to square one. In that reporters zealous for getting a story out there, You may have just jeopardized the security of not just Americans, but the World as a Whole…I’m just saying…
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