This morning, the White House released a special, very important messages from the President.
Tag: President Obama
Amid signs that he may have to accept a scaled-down version of gun legislation, Obama sounded a note of frustration in calling upon Americans to demand action from the U.S. Congress in the weeks ahead.
He said the legislation’s opponents, the powerful U.S. gun lobby led by the National Rifle Association, are “doing everything they can” to derail the effort barely 100 days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, in which a gunman killed 20 children, six staff members and then himself.
“The entire country pledged we would do something about it and that this time would be different. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten. I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten,” said Obama, appearing at the White House with mothers of children who had been shot to death.
The gunman in Newtown, Adam Lanza, fired 154 rounds in less than 5 minutes, selecting high capacity magazines from a home arsenal stocked with swords, knives and a cache of guns, officials said Thursday.
If President Obama really hates Israel like Republicans here in America would want you to believe, then why have the people of Israel awarded Mr. Obama the highest civilian honor in their country? Maybe, and I’m only guessing here, but just maybe, Republicans were lying all along. Maybe their claim that Obama is not liked Israel is just another political charade on their part, to get the Jewish vote.
During a dinner where President Obama was awarded the Honor, Israel’s President Shimon Peres said;
“It is my privilege to present you with our country’s highest honor, the Medal of Distinction. This award speaks to your tireless work to make Israel strong. And peace possible. Your presidency has given the close ties between Israel and the United States a new height. A sense of intimacy. A vision for the future. The people of Israel are particularly moved by your unforgettable contribution to their security. To defending our skies. To the collaboration in the domain of intelligence, which is the right way to preempt bloodshed. The diplomatic and military bonds between us have reached an unprecedented level.
“When I visited you in Washington, I thought in my heart: America is so great and we are so small. But I learned that you don’t measure us by size, but by values. When it comes to values, we are you and you are us.
“On occasion, when we were alone, you stood with us. So we were not alone. We were alone together. We shall never forget it. During your previous visit to Israel, you asked me if I had any advice to offer. It is not in my nature to let questions go unanswered. So I suggested that while people say that the future belongs to the young, it is the present that really belongs to the young.”
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March Madness – ‘Brackets Busted’
I Love March Madness 2013! It’s just as I predicted, unpredictable.
What I didn’t predict was some early upsets. Did anyone have #2 Seed New Mexico losing to #14 Seed Harvard (President Obama’s Alma Mater) in the West Region showdown? I know I didn’t. Or how about in the East Region with #12 Seed California beating #5 Seed UNLV. Uh, nope, didn’t have that one either. I also chose the Pitt Panthers from the West, Missouri and Oklahoma St. from the Midwest. Not a bad start, thank you very much.
Thus far in the opening round, I had a modest 11 of 16 games correct but guess what, I’m leading our President by one game. So far, President Obama is 10 for 16. According to the Bracketologist, the teams the President selected that are going home early are;
- Midwest: 5-seed Oklahoma State and 9-seed Missouri
- West: 8-seed Pittsburgh and 11-seed Belmont
- East: 5-seed UNLV
According to a USA Today article, 75% of the country is outpacing the President this year in their guesses, uh, selections (sorry prognosticators).
As I had stated in an earlier blog, the parity and non-dominating teams should make this one of the most fun tournaments of ‘Madness’ to watch. This weekend be no different with more upsets and ‘Bracket-Busters’ to come. Sure, #1 Seed Louisville destroyed N.C. A&T 79-48 in their opener in the Midwest Region, but #1 Seed Gonzaga in the West barely surpassed #16 Seed Southern University, 64-58.
And these college kids are laying it on the line and leaving everything on the court. Some real heartbreaking, post-game interviews with some teams and players have gotten very emotional, as we saw with one star athlete point guard, Tray Woodall for the Pitt Panther’s who had a dismal shooting night (1-12) from the floor in a first round lost to #9 Seed Wichita St. He cried throughout the entire interview, apologizing to both his teammates and his school for his performance. Even the play-in game with N.C. A&T escaping Liberty University on the Wednesday night opener was a nail-biting missed lay up by the Liberty point guard in the final seconds of the game. He, too was dismayed
Yes, many great moments have already occurred in this year’s edition of March Madness. The ‘Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat’ has taken place in just a few short games…and we’re only ¼ of the way home.
Hold on Tight March Madness Fans and Enjoy the Ride. It’s going to be a Wild one.
The President did something most Americans do every year, so naturally, Republicans found a problem with what he did. The latest example is Mr. Obama taking a few minutes out of his schedule to fill out his March Madness brackets. Most Republicans naturally have a problem with this, but we’ll look at what Senator Lindsey Graham and Rudy Giuliani has to say about this unbelievable thing the president did.
“Do you realize he’s never received one vote for any of his previous budgets? If he can pick one winner right in the brackets, he’s trumped on what he’s able to do on getting votes for his own budget,” Graham (R-S.C.) said Wednesday on Fox News’ “On the Record.”
Obama picked Indiana University to win the NCAA March Madness tournament, which begins Thursday.
“I think his basketball picks are good news stories and his budget is a lousy news story for him, and so he’s trying to do a good news story,” Graham said on Fox News.
He added: “So why he’s doing this? It’s a good soft news story. His budget is going to be met with absolutely no support from Democrats and Republicans.”
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said that he has no issue with Obama filling out a bracket — provided he gets his work done.
“I have no problem with the president doing his brackets. That’s fine. He’s having fun. He’s entitled to have some fun, but usually the way I look at it is you have fun after you do your work. And the president hasn’t done his work,” said Giuliani, a Republican, on Fox News. “He hasn’t done it in years. He hasn’t proposed a budget that’s serious since he’s been president. As Lindsey pointed out, he can’t even get a Democrat to vote for one of his budgets.”
Yep. Pay no attention to the fact that since the President’s policies took effect in 2009, the economy has been steadily adding millions of jobs that were lost under the previous Republican administration. And pay no attention to the fact that most Americans have regained the losses they suffered in their 401k and other annuity accounts. Or that the stock market recently hit an all time high due in part to the President’s policies, or that most economists agree that things are better now than when Obama took office.
Those are just facts Republicans would rather you not pay attention to. As far as they’re concerned, the President is not working.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama issued a very moving appeal to get Congress to vote on certain measures of Gun Control. Calling out the names of different victims of gun violence, and raising his voice over the thunderous applause from the very same members of congress he was appealing to, the President said,
“Hadiya’s parents, Nate and Cleo, are in this chamber tonight, along with more than two dozen Americans whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence. They deserve a vote. Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote.
“The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence – they deserve a simple vote.”
Well Congress has now answered the President, and its decision is that the President was wrong. Hadiya’s parents, Gabby Giffords, the families of Newtown, the families of Aurora, the families of Oak Creek and Tucson and Blacksburg – Congress is saying that these families don’t deserve a vote.
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid on Tuesday declared politically dead the effort to ban military-style assault weapons, a setback for President Obama and gun-control advocates who are pushing the Senate to move quickly on bills to limit gun violence.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker John Boehner says he “absolutely” trusts President Barack Obama — not that they don’t have their differences.
Boehner tells ABC’s “This Week” that the two have a good relationship and that they’re “open with each other … honest with each other.” But the Ohio lawmaker says they’re trying to bridge some big differences.
One issue they agree on: The U.S. doesn’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt.
Some conservatives criticized Obama when he said last week that the country doesn’t have an immediate debt crisis.
Boehner says a debt crisis does loom in the years ahead because entitlement programs are not sustainable if they aren’t changed.
He says balancing the budget will help the economy.
Yes, we’ve heard it all before. This is story-line is quite frankly beginning to sound like a broken record – another republican rejects the president’s outreach.
While doing his outreach to Republicans AGAIN on Wednesday, President Obama invited the Head of the Republicans in the House of Representatives to travel with Vice President and a delegation from the United States, to witness installation of the new Pope.
Boehner refused, stating that he had better things to do.
The Ohio Republican says in a statement that he’d like to go, but it’s impossible with his duties including the budget debate and hosting the Irish prime minister at the Capitol.
Vice President Joe Biden, the first Roman Catholic to be elected vice president, is leading the delegation. Boehner’s office said that after Obama spoke to House Republicans Wednesday, the president invited Boehner, who is Catholic, to accompany Biden.
Boehner says he is grateful for the invitation. He wished the vice president well and said he hopes Biden will send prayers and warm regards from all Americans, especially Catholics, to the first pope from the Americas.
With a plate full of crises already looming in President Obama’s second term – North Korea’s nuclear threats, the Drone Program, domestic gun control and continued GOP obstructions on every front – the latest battle is an oldie and not a goodie. It appears Obamacare has resurfaced with a great wave of ‘pomp and circumstance’.
Over this past weekend, many Republicans have begun their 35th war on ObamaCare, threatening to destroy the very fabric of its existence in the name of Debt Reduction. Now, the wiz kid of the previous election, Vice Presidential Candidate Rep. Paul Ryan has devised a plan (Again) to eliminate ObamaCare and reduce the debt in the same swing. After the fiscal cliff fiasco, Ryan said, “We’re not going to re-fight the past because we know that’s behind us,” but he doesn’t apply that logic to ObamaCare, which he and his fellow Republicans do want to relitigate… again!
Fighting to repeal ObamaCare was “never a doubt” in Republican minds, he said Tuesday.
This is completely ironic, mind you, because if you recall, Obamacare was patterned after the Mitt Romney health care plan he formulated in Massachusetts while he was governor. Also, if you recall, then Vice Presidential candidate Ryan, also formed his own plan. (Do you follow me?) When asked by a reporter what he thought of the Paul’s plan, Romney said, “I’m the one running for president. We’ll go by my plan.”
It appears that Rep. Ryan has no one holding him back now, so here is the brand new same old same old Paul Ryan Plan… again, Part 2.
It’s a 10-year fiscal plan that takes aim at repealing ObamaCare’s 2010 health care overhaul in which Paul projects savings of $4.63 trillion over 10 years, yielding a surplus of $7 billion by fiscal 2023. “Our opponents will shout austerity, but let’s put this in perspective,” Ryan wrote in an op-ed posted to The Wall Street Journal’s website Monday night. “On our current path, we’ll spend $46 trillion over the next 10 years. Under our proposal, we’ll spend $41 trillion. On the current path, spending will increase by 5 percent each year. Under our proposal, it will increase by 3.4 percent.”
But who benefits from this plan and who will be hurt by it?
As always, tax cuts for the wealthiest and the poor will see programs slashed, if not cut completely. The budget would take its heaviest toll on entitlements that support the poor, including Medicaid and food stamps, while holding Social Security harmless. Why the poor and middle class are always targeted by Republican programs has been a mystery to millions of Americans especially when the wealthy seem to not be phased by any loophole they can squirm through.
Do they understand that taking away any program from those that are in need only demoralizes that individual, that family, that community? And does the super rich Congressional Republicans really believe that Americans truly want to live on Food Stamps and Unemployment Benefits? Or have a Medicare program that doesn’t work for them?
Here’s the final analysis Rep. Ryan. During the 2012 election, America did not support your “plan” of action. They came out in record numbers and voted for the President’s approach in November. As a matter of fact, a new McClatchy-Marist poll of registered voters shows that, generally, voters, by 53 to 37 percent, prefer to reduce the deficits by mostly cutting government programs and services rather than mostly by raising taxes..
The White House chimed in on the Ryan plan stating,
“By choosing not to ask for a single dime of deficit reduction from closing tax loopholes for the wealthy and well-connected, this budget identifies deep cuts to investments like education and research – investments critical to creating jobs and growing the middle class. And to save money, this budget would turn Medicare into a voucher program–undercutting the guaranteed benefits that seniors have earned and forcing them to pay thousands more out of their own pockets. We’ve tried this top-down approach before. The President still believes it is the wrong course for America.”
It’s an attempt to make himself and his party look ‘busy,’ the same old, tired attack on Obamacare – a healthcare program that at last count, had the support of 9-GOP Governors over the past 3 weeks. Rep. Ryan and a group within the rank and file Republicans have decided to give it another go. But all of this is just another attempt to tarnish the legacy of President Obama.
Congressional Republicans have not backed the President’s plans or his direction for this country unless they felt cornered. And this is just an addendum or a harbinger of the Republicans wish for the future. Posturing for the 2014 elections? Digging in for the 2016 White House? Yes and Yes. But make no mistake about it, with Americans polling in high numbers that the wealthiest should take on more of the tax burden than the poor, Rep. Ryan and his GOP surrogates have an uphill fight or if you prefer, going up stream, up a creek without a paddle.
Still Out of Touch with America. The good thing is, the longer they stay out of touch with America, the longer they’ll stay Out of the White House. In that case, Stay the Course.
In his weekly address, President Obama says that businesses have created jobs every month for three years straight – nearly 6.4 million altogether, and have added 246,000 new jobs in February. We must keep this momentum going, and that’s why the President recently met with Republican leaders to discuss how we can replace the harmful, arbitrary budget cuts, called the “sequester,” with balanced deficit reduction.
They claim they couldn’t remember the President reaching out to them in the past. I don’t know what their issue is, but Congressional Republicans seems to have a very short memory or maybe it’s just selective memory. I can remember a very recent invitation from the President, asking Republicans to come to the White House for a screening of the movie Lincoln. They all refused.
Whatever their issue is, these Republicans are now happy again, because the President is continuing his outreach program to them. After taking them to dinner last night, President Obama will be hosting a lunch today. We’ll see what they have to say about him later, after all the dinners, breakfasts and lunches are over.
Reminds me of the saying, “what have you done for me lately.” They will love you when you’re paying, but hate you when you’re not.
Following on his unusual dinner on Wednesday with a dozen Republican senators, President Obama will have a bipartisan lunch on Thursday with Representative Paul D. Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, and the panel’s senior Democrat, Representative Chris Van Hollen.
Mr. Obama’s recent spate of meals and phone calls with Republicans is a new outreach strategy to work around party leaders, especially in the Republican-controlled House, who have dug in against any more budget talks. And the lunch comes as Mr. Ryan is preparing to bring a new budget plan to a vote in his committee next week.
Since Mr. Ryan’s House budget is expected to be contrary to Mr. Obama’s plan, it is unclear what might come of the luncheon parlay. Mr. Ryan, as in the past three years, is expected to propose balancing the budget by cutting projected spending only, especially for the fast-growing entitlement programs Medicare and Medicaid. Mr. Obama wants a deficit-reduction package that is a balance of spending reductions and further tax increases by closing some breaks for the wealthy and corporations.
Mr. Obama’s two-hour dinner with Republican senators at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington on Wednesday apparently covered more subjects than the budget, including immigration and gun safety legislation – two of the president’s other second-term priorities. As they left, Senators John McCain of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma each gave waiting reporters a thumbs-up.
A powerful Q&A happened today after President Obama met with leaders of Congress. The president held a press conference to talk about what happened in his meeting and took questions from reporters. One of the question was from a CNN reporter, Jessica Yellin, who implied that the President was not doing everything possible to force Republicans into see things his way.
In his response, President answered that he is “not a dictator,” and if Republicans say they have to go catch a plane, he “cannot have Secret Service block the doorway.” He continued;
I know that has been some of the conventional wisdom that’s been floating around Washington, that somehow, even though most people agree that I’m being reasonable, that most people agree I’m presenting a fair deal, that fact that they don’t take it means that I should somehow do a Jedi mind meld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right.
Well they’re elected. We have a constitutional system of Government. The Speaker of the House and the Leader of the Senate and all those folks have responsibilities. What I can do is I can make the best possible case for why we need to do the right thing. I can speak to the American people about the consequences of the decisions that Congress is making or the lack of decision making by Congress.
But ultimately, it’s a choice they make. This idea that somehow there’s a secret formula or a secret sauce to get Speaker Boehner or Mitch McConnell to say, you know what Mr. President, you’re right. We should close some tax loopholes for the well off and well connected in exchange for some serious entitlement reform and spending cuts to programs we don’t need, I think if there was a secret way to do that, I would have tried it. I would have done it.
What I can do is I can make the best possible argument. And I can offer concessions, I can offer compromise, I can negotiate, I can make sure that my party is willing to compromise and is not being ideological or thinking about this just in terms of political terms. And I think I’ve done that and I will continue to do that. But what I can’t do is force Congress to do the right thing.
But there was a follow-up. Jessica had another statement/question to make. She asked about New York’s Mayor Bloomberg who stated that the effects of the Sequester was being overstated. Jessica wanted to know if Bloomberg was correct. The President responded with a few examples, one of them being that the Department of Defense now had to figure out how to continue providing full education to the children of military families if their teachers were furloughed . And he pointed out that Mayor Bloomberg will not feel that pain.
Watch the full exchange below;
