In case you haven’t seen it yet, we’ve posted the video below. Jack Hoffman is seven years old and battling pediatric brain cancer. Jack met with President Obama today after scoring a 69 yard touchdown on April 6th during a Nebraska Cornhuskers spring football game.
Did you miss it? Well here is Jack, doing his thing!
And his meeting with the President.
Chris Christie is once again, saying good things about the president.
Apparently Christie did not learn his lesson after he spoke good things about Mr. Obama during the 2012 election and was forced to bear the wrath of his Republican friends for Romney’s loss.
Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program on the 6-month anniversary of the deadly storm, the Republican governor said presidential politics were the last thing on his mind as he toured storm-devastated areas with Obama last fall.
“The president has kept every promise he’s made,” said Christie, widely considered a potential candidate for the republican presidential nomination in 2016. “I think he’s done a good job. He kept his word.”
Christie’s warm embrace of Obama after the storm angered some Republicans, who said it helped tip a close presidential election to the Democrat and away from Mitt Romney, who Christie endorsed and for whom he campaigned last fall.
Christie says he and Obama have fundamentally different views on governing. But he said the two men did what needed to be done for a devastated region.
h/t New York Post
President Barack Obama joked Saturday about his plans for a radical second-term evolution from “strapping young Socialist” to retiree golfer, all with a new hairstyle like first lady Michelle’s.
Obama used this year’s annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to poke fun at himself and some of his political adversaries, asking if it was still possible to be brought down a peg after 4½ years as commander-in-chief.
Entering to the rap track “All I Do Is Win” by DJ Khaled, Obama joked about how re-election would allow him to unleash a radical agenda. But then he showed a picture of himself golfing on a mock magazine cover of “Senior Leisure.”
“I’m not the strapping young Socialist that I used to be,” the president remarked, and then recounted his recent 2-for-22 basketball shooting performance at the White House Easter Egg hunt.
But Obama’s most dramatic shift for the next four years appeared to be aesthetic. He presented a montage of shots featuring him with bangs similar to those sometimes sported by his wife.
h/t – ABC
It’s a threat Mr and Mrs Obama made to keep their daughters from getting a tattoo.
Obama says he and his wife, Michelle, have told 14-year-old Malia and 11-year-old Sasha that if they ever decide to get a tattoo then “mommy and me” will get the same tattoo in the same place on their bodies and show it off on YouTube as a “family tattoo.”
Obama commented in an interview taped last week and broadcast Wednesday on NBC’s “Today.”
The president also dismissed the first lady’s recent reference to herself as a single mom during a separate television interview.
Obama suggested the comment was a slip of the tongue. But he also acknowledged there have been times in his political career when she probably did feel like a single parent.
President Barack Obama, moving swiftly after the Senate rejected a measure to expand background checks for gun buyers, acted on Friday to patch holes in the existing database dealers use to ensure they are not selling weapons to criminals or the mentally ill.
The Health and Human Services Department will issue a formal proposal on Friday to make sure one of its privacy laws does not prevent states from reporting information to the background check system.
“While this background check system is the most efficient and effective way to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals, it is only as effective as the information that is available to it,” an administration official said.
Obama was visibly frustrated after the Senate on Wednesday defeated a bill that would have expanded background checks for guns bought at gun shows and on the Internet.
“Even without Congress, my administration will keep doing everything it can to protect more of our communities,” Obama said on Wednesday.
“We’re going to address the barriers that prevent states from participating in the existing background check system,” he said. The idea was part of a series of executive actions Obama first announced in January.
h/t Reuters
After watching the drama unfold for almost a week, leading up to the successful capture of one of the masterminds behind the bombings in Boston, president Obama used this week’s address to remind the world of the resilience of the American people.
But in the days since, the world has witnessed one sure and steadfast truth: Americans refuse to be terrorized. Ultimately, that’s what we’ll remember from this week. That’s what will remain. Stories of heroism and kindness; resolve and resilience; generosity and love.
A letter addressed to President Obama that field-tested positive for the poison ricin was received at the remote White House mail screening facility Tuesday, according to law enforcement officials.
Law enforcement officials emphasized that these tests are preliminary and are often unreliable. They said the final word would come from a complete lab test that should be completed in the next 24 to 48 hours.
A false positive for ricin occurs at least once each year, a homeland security official told ABC News.
The facility routinely identifies letters or parcels that require secondary screening or scientific testing before delivery.
The office of Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi also Tuesday received a suspicious letter potentially laced with ricin, postmarked from Memphis.
Testing on the first letter is incomplete but expected to be finished this afternoon. The first letter was addressed to Republican Wicker.
The Secret Service mail screening facility is a remote facility, not located near the White House complex, that all White House mail goes through.
The Secret Service is working closely with the U.S. Capitol Police and the FBI in this investigation.
FBI sources say anytime suspicious powder is located in a mail facility, field tests are conducted. The field and other preliminary tests in this instance produced inconsistent results. The material has been sent to an accredited laboratory for further analysis.
Only a full analysis performed at an accredited laboratory can determine the presence of a biological agent such as ricin. Those tests are in the process of being conducted and generally take from 24 to 48 hours.
The Centers for Disease Control defines ricin as a poison that comes from castor beans and can be found in a powder, a mist, a pellet or dissolved in water.
“In the 1940s, the U.S. military experimented with using ricin as a possible warfare agent,” the CDC writes. “In some reports ricin has possibly been used as a warfare agent in the 1980s in Iraq and more recently by terrorist organizations.”
Could JayZ and Beyonce‘s trip have anything to do with the possibilities of new policies regarding the US trade embargo against Cuba? In recent weeks, the interest of a change in U.S. policy towards Cuba has been showing up in some of the most important media outlets in the United States.
One of the key points in this widening discussion is to find a clear and just solution to the case of the Cuban 5, prisoners held in the United States for 15 years.
The US government never confirmed that any real acts of espionage had been carried out, since no classified documents had been confiscated from the Five. The men have since stated that their actual mission in the United States was monitoring the activities of the groups and organizations, dissidents and ex-patriots of Cuban after the revolution, responsible for terrorist activities against Cuba. After the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959, Cuba had been the victim of more terrorist attacks than any other country in the world, killing 3,478 and injuring 2,099. The vastly majority of those attacks originated in southern Florida, by groups tolerated and partly financed by the US government.
After their arrest, the Five were immediately placed in solitary confinement, for the 17 months of pretrial custody.
Despite vigorous objections raised by the Five’s defense, the case was tried in Miami, Florida, a community with a long history of hostility toward the Cuban government, which prevented them from receiving a fair trial.
Their six month trial became the longest in United States history and its resulting four life plus 77 year sentence for each of the five defendants made them the first people ever to be sentenced to life imprisonment for espionage in a United States case, in which there were no secret documents was ever obtained.
The Five were imprisoned in five separate maximum security prisons spread across the US without the possibility of communication with each other.
Cuba is the only country in the world that Americans are restricted from visiting. If you can get a visa, the US government allows you to go anywhere else in the world, even places like Syria, Iran or North Korea. For this reason there are questions brewing over the legality of the trip. Did the Carter’s visit Cuba as unofficial envoys of the President? In his recently released rap song Open Letter, JayZ kicks back a response to the negative press of his visit to the tropical country, with the lyrics, “…boy from the hood but got White House clearance”. But the White House has immediately denied any sponsorship for the visit to Cuba.
If recent news reports are accurate, then the United States Senate will be discussing gun control measures that will look like John Cleese and the Ministry of Silly Walks: Take one small step, slide. take a giant stride forward, then backtrack a bit before moving forward again.
Whatever it takes.
The negotiations over the proposed bill have been fraught with political dangers for both Republicans and Democrats. It’s still so partisan that Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania didn’t even want New York Democrat Chuck Schumer in the news conference announcing the deal for fear that Schumer’s presence would put off gun rights advocates. And of course, there’s still the prospect of a GOP-led filibuster, but support for that has waned over the past day. Looks like even Mitch McConnell is powerless to stop common sense. But he’s trying.
I am cautiously optimistic that we will get a gun bill through the Senate. The House will be a higher hurdle, but enough conservatives can probably feel safe to vote for any compromise bill. If the House votes it down, look for President Obama to pull out all the stops to make it an issue in 2014.
It’s imperfect, but it’s a start. Get a bill passed. It can always be improved later on.
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President Barack Obama made an impassioned plea today for citizens to contact their legislators and demand action on gun control, saying he’s as “determined as ever” to pass tougher measures.
Speaking at the University of Hartford before a crowd that included families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, the president said the contentious debate over gun control measures “shouldn’t be about politics.”
He singled out Republican lawmakers who want to use procedural maneuvers to block legislation, arguing that such a move would be akin to saying that public opinion doesn’t matter.
The president was introduced to the crowd by a woman whose son was among the 20 young children who were killed in the Newtown shooting in December. Six adults were also killed at the school.
“If you’re an American who wants to do something to prevent more families from knowing the immeasurable anguish that these families know, now is the time to act,” Obama said. “Now is the time to get engaged, to get involved, to push back on fear, frustration, and misinformation. Now is the time to make your voice heard from every state house to the corridors of Congress.”
I guess desperate times call for desperate measures.
In an attempt to reach a deficit-reduction deal, President Obama is offering to cut essential programs such as Social Security and Medicare in his new budget proposal. The President’s proposal will include a cut of $1.8 trillion over 10 years and replace the budget cuts that went into effect on March 1. This deal also revisits an earlier proposal to House Speaker, John Boehner, where $400 billion in savings to Medicare would occur over those 10 years.
A senior administration official commented,
The President’s budget to be presented on Wednesday will show how we can invest in the things we need to grow our economy, create jobs and strengthen the middle class while further reducing the deficit in a balanced way
The Social Security portion will include a ‘chained CPI’, an inflation formula which should attract many Republicans as the CPI is argued to be a more accurate calculation of inflation which could possibly help minimize the growth of consumer prices. The idea of whether or not this is truly the case is still being heavily debated.
There’s little doubt that this proposal will cause some dissent against President Obama as cutting Social Security and Medicare is an unpopular choice for many Democratic supporters.
However, this has been an ongoing battle between the President and many Republican incumbents and it’s clear that the President is ready to move forward with some type of compromise that pleases most, if not all, members of each party.
Just don’t bend too far, Mr. President.
At the time of this writing, Republicans have not complained about this use of time by President Obama. The video however, was released today. It’s still early. Give em time. They’ll come up with something.
Video.
