President Obama has given the clearest sign yet that the federal government has no intention of challenging those states which voted on Nov. 7 to legalize the recreational use and sale of marijuana.
Speaking to ABC News’ Barbara Walters, the president said that the prosecution of recreational marijuana users in states that have legalized the substance won’t be a ‘top priority’ for federal law enforcement officials in the war on drugs.
‘We’ve got bigger fish to fry,’ said the president, who was speaking about cannabis for the first time since Colorado and Washington voted to legalize it.
‘It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it’s legal,’ he told Walters in a 20/20 interview which airs Friday night.
Although the sale and use of marijuana is in defiance of federal law, the president’s comments are the strongest suggestion yet that he plans to adopt a ‘hands-off’ approach, similar to that taken toward users of medicinal marijuana in the 18 states where it is legal.
President Obama did what he felt was right. He authorized the bailout of AIG and received what seemed to be a never ending amount of criticism from Republicans and their news channel, Fox News.
But according to the latest report from the Treasury Department, it appears that the AIG Bailout was the right move, and now the president and the American people are laughing all the way to the bank.
The Treasury Department said on Tuesday that it had sold its remaining stake in the American International Group, earning about $7.6 billion from the sale.
The government sold the 234.2 million shares at $32.50 each, a small discount from the closing price of $33.36 on Monday. The block of shares represented a 15.9 percent stake in the insurer.
With the latest sale, taxpayers have gained about $22.7 billion from a bailout that many predicted would prompt a staggering loss. In an effort to stabilize the global banking system, the government rescued A.I.G. just days after the failure of Lehman Brothers.
The stock sale also means that A.I.G. is a fully private enterprise once more, after the government owned as much as 92 percent of its shares. After the sale, the Treasury Department will hold only warrants to buy about 2.7 million shares of A.I.G. common stock, which will also be sold to generate a profit.
Former Florida governor Charlie Crist has completed his political conversion, announcing on Twitter that he has joined the Democrats as a result of the Republican party’s swing to the right.
The one-time GOP politician, who ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate as an independent, had earlier signaled his support for President Barack Obama and campaigned on his behalf ahead of the November election.
News that Crist has formalized the move to the Democratic party will prompt speculation that he may lobby for a run at his old seat in the 2014 gubernatorial race in Florida.
The 56-year-old politician tweeted out a picture of him and his wife Carole holding aloft a Florida voter registration application.
The accompanying message read: “Proud and honored to join the Democratic Party in the home of President @BarackObama.”
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Crist signed the papers changing his affiliation from independent to Democrat at a Christmas reception at the White House. President Obama is said to have greeted the news with a fist bump.
President Obama urges Congress to extend the middle class income tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses without delay, making it clear that a balanced approach to deficit reduction means that Republicans in Congress must agree to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay higher tax rates.
A new Associated Press/GFK Poll has President Obama’s approval ratings almost as high as it was when the President was first elected in 2008, and his new ratings are where they were when Mr. Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Obama’s approval rating stands at 57 percent, the highest since May 2011, when U.S. Navy SEALs killed the terror leader, and up 5 percentage points from before the election. And 42 percent say the country is on the right track, up from 35 percent in January 2009.
A majority think it’s likely that the president will be able to improve the economy in his second term.
“Compared to the alternative, I’m more optimistic about government and the economy with him in office,” said Jack Reinholt, an independent from Bristol, R.I., who backed Obama in 2008 and again in 2012. “I feel he has the better path laid out.”
Looking ahead to Obama’s final four years, most Americans doubt he can reduce the federal budget deficit. But almost 7 in 10 say he will be able to implement the health care law passed in March 2010 and remove most troops from Afghanistan. And most think he’ll be able to improve the economy and boost race relations in his final term, though both those figures are down significantly from January 2009.
President Obama launched a double-pronged appeal in his latest bid to court business leaders, asking a group of CEOs on Wednesday to back him on allowing a tax hike on wealthier Americans and also pushing back against Republican attempts to use the debt ceiling in budget negotiations.
He told members of the Business Roundtable that the only way to reach the amount of revenue needed for a balanced package to address the country’s deficits and avert the so-called fiscal cliff was to extend Bush-era tax cuts for middle-class Americans while letting them expire for the top 2 percent of income-earners.
“By doing that alone, we raise almost a trillion dollars,” he said. “…The holdup right now is that Speaker Boehner took a position, I think, the day after the campaign that said, ‘We’re willing to bring in revenue but we’re not going to increase rates.'”
Obama said the GOP proposal to close tax loopholes and cap or eliminate deductions only goes so far — adding up to $300 or $400 billion — without hitting deductions that could harm the less fortunate, such as the one for charitable giving.
“We’re not insisting on [higher] rates just out of spite …but rather because we need to raise a certain amount of revenue,” he said.
The president also told the group that he would not allow Republicans in Congress to try and barter a debt-ceiling increase in exchange for more spending cuts, noting that the horse-trading alone over an increase last year sent the economy reeling.
“We can’t afford to go there again,” he said. “…The only thing the debt ceiling is good as a weapon for is destroying your credit rating… I will not play that game.”
Alan Hicks divides long days between the insurance business he started in the late 1970s and the barbecue restaurant he opened with his sons three years ago. He earned more than $250,000 last year and said taxes took more than 40 percent. What’s worse, in his view, is that others — the wealthy, hiding in loopholes; the poor, living on government benefits — are not paying their fair share.
“It feels like the harder we work, the more they take from us,” said Mr. Hicks, 55, as he waited for a meat truck one recent afternoon. “And it seems like there’s an awful lot of people in the United States who don’t pay any taxes.”
These are common sentiments in the eastern suburbs of St. Louis, a region of fading factory towns fringed by new subdivisions. Here, as across the country, people like Mr. Hicks are pained by the conviction that they are paying ever more to finance the expansion of government.
But in fact, most Americans in 2010 paid far less in total taxes — federal, state and local — than they would have paid 30 years ago. According to an analysis by The New York Times, the combination of all income taxes, sales taxes and property taxes took a smaller share of their income than it took from households with the same inflation-adjusted income in 1980.
Households earning more than $200,000 benefited from the largest percentage declines in total taxation as a share of income. Middle-income households benefited, too. More than 85 percent of households with earnings above $25,000 paid less in total taxes than comparable households in 1980.
Am I reading too much into this? Am I misrepresenting what Grover Norquist is really saying here?
With all the blatant disrespect this particular president has endured from these Republicans, I’ll put Grover’s statement in the same category as that of the common Republican racist who shouted out “you lie” at the president while he addressed the nation, or the racist Romney adviser who threw out the usual stereotypical buzzword of “lazy” while referring to the first black president. Or the racist Republican governor who felt the need to point her old wrinkled finger in the president’s face as if he needed scolding.
Grover’s “short leash” comment came in an interview with Mike Allen at Politico Playbook Breakfast. Grover, respected and loved in the Republican circle and the author of the no-tax “pledge” most congressional and senate Republicans signed, is considered smart enough to know the sentiment his statement would conjurer up. But he opened his mouth and said them anyway.
The conversation between the two men was about the so-called fiscal cliff and the Bush Tax cuts set to expire at the end of December. It went like this:
Mike Allen: This president is not going to extend [the Bush tax cuts], he knows that he loses his leverage that way.
Grover Norquist: Well, the Republicans also have other leverage. Continuing resolutions on spending and the debt ceiling increase. They can give him debt ceiling increases once a month. They can have him on a rather short leash… Here’s your allowance, come back next month if you behave.
Mike Allen: Okay, wait. You’re proposing that the debt ceiling be increased month by month?
Grover Norquist: Monthly if he’s good. Weekly if he’s not.
Apparently this president, this particular president, is looked upon as an animal by the leaders in the Republican party.
‘I do think he did a terrific job running the Olympics,’ Obama said. ‘And you know, that skill set of trying to figure out how do we make something work better applies to the federal government. There are a lot of ideas that I don’t think are partisan ideas but are just smart ideas about how can we make the federal government more customer-friendly.’
That was President Obama a week after winning re-election, as he answered a reporter’s question about a promise he made to meet with his Republican rival after the election. Well sources are quoting Romney aides, stating that a lunch between the two is set for Thursday.
Obama aides reached out to Romney shortly before Thanksgiving to start working on a date for the meeting.
‘It was a gracious invitation from the president, which Mitt Romney was glad to accept,’ a top Romney aide said.
John McCain and his Republican friends would not be happy hearing this. According to official reports, the White House had absolutely nothing to do with replacing the words, “al Qaeda” with “Extremists” in the talking points Susan Rice repeated on the Sunday talk shows.
The intelligence community — not the White House, State Department or Justice Department — was responsible for the substantive changes made to the talking points distributed for government officials who spoke publicly about the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, the spokesman for the director of national intelligence said Monday.
….The initial version included information linking individuals involved in the attack to al Qaeda, according to a senior U.S. official familiar with the drafting of the talking points. But when the document was sent to the rest of the intelligence community for review, there was a decision to change “al Qaeda” to “extremists.” The official said the change was made for legitimate intelligence and legal reasons, not for political purposes.
Republicans led by John McCain, have hoped and prayed that someone in the White House – preferably President Obama – changed those words. Their hope was presenting the Obama administration in a negative light, engaging in a cover-up of the unfortunate events that took the lives of four Americans in Benghazi Libya.
Now that this information is cleared up, are the Republicans going to stop their baseless witch-hunt on Susan Rice? Don’t bet on it. After this news broke, 97 Republicans signed a letter urging President Obama to avoid nominating Susan Rice for Secretary of State.
Susan Rice has over 20 years of diplomatic experience. She is the United States Ambassador to the United Nations and has the experience and education necessary to represent America as Secretary of State. Why then, are Republicans hellbent on denying her nomination? Said Marcia Fudge, the next chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus:
“All of the things they have disliked about things that have gone on in the administration, they have never called a male unqualified, not bright, not trustworthy. There is a clear sexism and racism that goes with these comments being made by unfortunately Sen. McCain and others.”
John McCain is doing a fantastic job of playing the role of the grumpy old man. He has embraced this role since losing to President Obama in 2008 and he sees a clear benefit to continuing his role today in 2012. The killing of four Americans in Benghazi has been McCain’s most recent trophy, and he is trying to use this trophy to hit the president and his administration on the head.
Since Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed on September 11th, 2012, Republicans led by presidential loser Mitt Romney have tried to blame President Obama. The blame game began before knowledge of the American deaths were known as Mitt Romney held a press conference while the attacks were happening, calling the uprising in Libya “the downfall of President Obama’s foreign policy.”
The killings happened at an unfortunately ideal moment, as Muslims all over the Middle East responded to a “movie” made by a right-wing nut-job here in America. Egyptians marched in protest to the movie that depicted their leader in many disparaging ways and in Libya, more protests against the movie occurred. People marched to a compound in Benghazi where Ambassador Stevens worked and rocket-propelled grenades exploded in the compound killing the four Americans.
At this moment when the news finally made it back that Americans actually died, Mitt Romney had already wrapped up his press conference blaming President Obama. That was a little over two months ago and since then, Mitt Romney lost the general election. Leave it up to John McCain to carry on Romney’s fight.
So now, John McCain has the administration in his sights and more specifically, the United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice. Rice could President Obama’s nominee to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, but soon after the events in Benghazi, Rice went on the Sunday television talk shows and repeated the information she knew at that time – that the attack in Benghazi was not an act of terrorists, but the result of the uprising against the movie.
That was the information Susan Rice had before the formal investigation was made, but John McCain thinks there is a bigger story here. Without any proof whatsoever, McCain and the Republicans are continuing to push this issue hoping that somehow, it leads to the doorstep of President Obama. And McCain is willing disapprove any nominee for Secretary of State until the President is impeached for… something.
Doing how own rounds on the Sunday talk shows, McCain was heard saying;
Under the present circumstances, until we find out all the information as to what happened, I don’t think you would want to support any nominee right now. Because this is very very serious and it has even larger implications than the deaths of 4 Americans. It really goes to the heart of this whole light foot print policy that this administration is pursuing.
The American people have spoken in the election, and based on the results of the elections they want a government capable of working together to solve the pressing issues of the day. But given McCain’s present goal to bring down this administration at any cost necessary, including pushing baseless and fact-less stories, it seem that working together for the benefit of the country is not the path McCain wishes to pursue.
Apparently McCain still has some ill feelings towards this president and the need for the country to have an effective Secretary of State will take a back seat to McCain’s own personal feelings.
Picking up right where he left off before the election, President Obama continued his call for maintaining the middle class tax cut, while asking the rich to pay their fair share. He once again called on Republicans to get on board, instead of holding the middle class “hostage” in their effort to pander to the rich.
When it comes to taxes, for example, there are two pathways available.
One says, if Congress fails to act by the end of the year, then everybody’s taxes automatically go up – including the 98% of Americans who make less than $250,000 a year. Our economy can’t afford that right now. You can’t afford that right now. And nobody wants that to happen.
The other path is for Congress to pass a law right away to prevent a tax hike on the first $250,000 of anyone’s income. That means all Americans – including the wealthiest Americans – get a tax cut. And 98 percent of Americans, and 97 percent of all small business owners, won’t see their income taxes go up a single dime.
The Senate has already passed a bill like this. Democrats in the House are ready to pass one, too. All we need is for Republicans in the House to come on board.
We shouldn’t hold the middle class hostage while Congress debates tax cuts for the wealthy. Let’s begin our work by actually doing what we all agree on. Let’s keep taxes low for the middle class. And let’s get it done soon – so we can give families and businesses some good news going into the holiday season.
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