Tag Archives: White House

May 19, 2013 · 8:06 AM

Kos’: Sunday Talk: You read it here first

Daily Kos

Morning lineup:

Meet the Press: White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer;  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI); Roundtable: Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal) andBob Woodward (Washington Post).Face the Nation: White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer; Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX); Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT); President/CEO of the Associated Press Gary Pruitt; Roundtable: David Sanger (New York Times), Lois Romano (Politico), Dan Balz (Washington Post) and John Dickerson (CBS News).

This Week: White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer; Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH); Sen.Bob Menendez (D-NJ); Rep. Tom Price (R-GA); Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY);Roundtable: George Will (Washington Post), Ron Fournier (National Journal), April Ryan (American Urban Radio Networks), Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Nation) and Jeff Zeleny (ABC News).

Fox News Sunday: White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer; Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI); Roundtable: Brit Hume (Fox News), Kirsten Powers (Daily Beast), GOP Strategist Karl Rove and Former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH).

State of the Union: White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer; Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY);  Susan Page (USA Today); Democratic Strategist Donna Brazile; GOP Strategist Ana Navarro;  Jessica Yellin (CNN);

Reliable Sources: Jennifer Loven (Associated Press); Joe Concha (Mediaite); American University Prof. Jane Hall; Jennifer Rubin(Washington Post); David Shuster (Current TV); Michelle Cottle (Daily Beast).

The Chris Matthews Show: Kasie Hunt (NBC News); David Ignatius (Washington Post); Gloria Borger (CNN); Howard Finman  Huffington Post).

Evening lineup:

60 Minutes will feature: a report on the use of computer facial recognition technology in public places, which is making it harder to remain anonymous (preview); an interview with North Korean defector Shin Dong Hyuk (preview); and, a look at some of the personal effects of Michael Jackson, whose brand is making more money in death than he was earning later in life (preview).

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May 17, 2013 · 6:31 AM

Breaking: Report claims Republicans edited White House Benghazi e-mails

What was the GOP hoping to achieve by over-blowing the current Benghazi scandal and other “scandals” promoted by them?

The Examiner

A new report released Thursday night accused Republicans of editing the White House Benghazi e-mails, sending a hard blow to the conservative conspiracy theory on the issue.

Only one day after the White House released 100 pages of Benghazi e-mails, CBS news is reporting that the original e-mails released only one week ago were edited by Republicans. The two main points that were focused on in the CBS report were from National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes and State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

The statement by Rhodes in the official White House e-mail differs from the edited Republicans version. Below are the two statement were the difference is clearly shown.

Republican edited e-mail:

“We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation.”

Offical White House email:

“We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.”

State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland’s comments were also altered, as CBS news points out the conflicting statements.

Republican edited e-mail: :

“The penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency (CIA) about al-Qaeda’s presence and activities of al-Qaeda.”

Official White House email:

“The penultimate point could be abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings.”

After congressional Republicans accused the Obama administration of watering down vital information regarding the attacks in Benghazi, they released e-mails that were supposed to be damaging to the White House. If the CBS report holds water, the Republican conspiracy against the Obama administration could lose traction.

President Obama called the alleged scandal a “sideshow,” and a new poll shows that more people trust former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton over congressional Republicans on the situation in Benghazi. While Republicans have compared the alleged “Benghazi cover up” to President Nixon’s Watergate scandal, many from the political center to the left are laughing it off as another conservative attempt at playing politics.

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May 16, 2013 · 8:21 AM

In Two Hours Obama Destroys the GOP’s Benghazi and IRS Scandals

obama-irs

So, there you have it…

PoliticusUSA

Just as Republicans and their media lackeys were getting their Obama scandal machine fired up, President Obama killed both the Benghazi and IRS “scandals” in a couple of hours.

The president put a stake through the heart of the GOP’s attempts to revive Benghazi by releasing 100 pages of emails. (Now, the world can see how badly Jon Karl and ABC News got played when they used the summaries of someone else’s notes.) The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent published an email from Tommy Vietor, who until recently was the spokesperson for the National Security Council. Vietor wrote, “Regarding the talking points, it’s not surprising that the entire government would want the chance to look at and edit that language. This was a dynamic situation and new information was constantly flowing in, and different agencies had important concerns that had to be addressed – the State Department had security concerns, the FBI was worried about its investigation, and the CIA had a major, yet still undisclosed, role.”

Republicans are putting out vague statements about contradictions, but Benghazi is pretty much finished as a scandal. It is difficult to accuse the White House of a cover up, when they’ve released all the emails.

The second part of the one-two punch was Obama speaking about the IRS scandal.

Video:

Transcript

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May 15, 2013 · 11:01 AM

Two scandals deflated, one persists

Salon – Joan Walsh

The Obama administration started Tuesday mired in three scandals the GOP seemed able to tie “into one ‘Big Brother Obama’ storyline,” in the words of Greg Sargent, and ended it appearing to face political culpability on only one, the Department of Justice’s broad subpoenas obtaining phone records from the Associated Press. It’s not to say Benghazi or the IRS mess went away, but the GOP’s creepy plot line got a whole lot less plausible.

The Benghazi “scandal” lost velocity thanks to CNN’s Jake Tapper reporting that an email key to the notion that the White House doctored talking points to protect the State Department didn’t at all read the way ABC’s Jonathan Karl reported it. Karl quoted White House national security communications advisor Ben Rhodes’ email specifically saying the talking points should “reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department,” but the actual email obtained by Tapper didn’t mention the State Department at all. Karl ended the day with the shocking admission that while he’d reported on air that he’d “obtained” the emails in question, and wrote online that he’d “reviewed” them, in fact he’d only heard about them from the notes of a source – presumed to be a House GOP staffer.

Amazingly, Karl insisted Tapper’s reporting didn’t challenge the basic facts of his story, even though he acknowledged for the first time that he hadn’t actually “obtained” or “reviewed” the actual emails, but rather had notes about them read to him by his source. The fact that Karl put the purported email from Rhodes within quotation marks – which in actual journalism means you’re reading a direct quote from someone – seriously damages his credibility. But the ABC reporter reported concluded his self-defense by blaming the White House for failing to release all the emails – rather than blaming his source for misleading him, or himself for misleading his readers by using quotes around the Rhodes email.

Here’s hoping ABC News explains why the paraphrased depiction of notes about an email from a hostile source wound up within quotation marks attributed to Rhodes, and whether that’s the news organization’s policy.

On the IRS mess, the day closed with the release of the Inspector General’s report on the improper review of applications by Tea Party-related groups for tax-exempt “social welfare” status. The report blamed “inadequate management” for the review process, which began under Bush-appointed leadership, and it reads like everyone’s worst nightmare of incompetent government. But it finds no evidence that anyone higher than middle management was responsible for the review. Moreover, although it’s clear that groups with Tea Party or Patriot in their names came in for more scrutiny and delay than most liberal groups,  more than two thirds of the groups flagged for review had nothing to do with the Tea Party. And none of the conservatives were denied tax-exempt status, though many faced long delays.  Ironically, the only group that saw its status denied (for 10 of its chapters) was Emerge America, which works to elect Democratic women to office.

Within hours, President Obama sent a scathing statement about the IG’s findings, calling them “intolerable and inexcusable” and promising that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew would make sure all of its recommendations to correct the flaws in the IRS’s review process were implemented.

It’s the DOJ’s subpoena of phone records for 20 AP phone lines used by at least 100 reporters, in pursuit of a government official who leaked information about the U.S. foiling another al Qaida underwear-bomb plot, that has the capacity to damage the Obama administration. This White House is already shadowed by the fact that it has prosecuted more government “leakers” – also known as whistleblowers – than all previous administrations put together.

As Marcy Wheeler explained in Salon, the DOJ’s own guidelines require it to go directly to the news agency in question with its subpoena, which would have given AP the right to negotiate over it, or challenge it in court. The DOJ may subvert that requirement if going to the news agency would “pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation.” Since the investigation into the identity of the leaker was already big news – in fact, congressional leaders in both parties had demanded it – it hardly constituted a secret operation that would be blown by negotiating with the AP.

So did Tuesday’s developments on the Benghazi and IRS fronts break scandal fever in the Beltway? Sadly, no. On Wednesday MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” remained scandal central, setting the day’s agenda. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank’s wispy, fact-light “President Passerby” seems to be the top talking point: Even if some of the smoke is clearing, Obama hasn’t done enough personally to put out the fires. That’s leading the Drudge Report as I write.

Obama is not without blame here; the AP scandal particularly seems to stem from his administration’s overall approach to secrecy. With hindsight, he probably should have directed Jack Lew to take bolder steps on Friday night, when the IRS story broke. On Benghazi, the Beltway is determined to punish the president for insisting the talking points scandal is a “sideshow” – when that’s exactly what it is.

As I wrote Monday, before the AP news, some of the same bad actors who paralyzed the country during the Clinton years over phony scandals are getting ready to do it again. It’s too bad the genuine overreach by the DOJ is going to give some progressives understandable pause about wholeheartedly defending the administration. But people need to acknowledge that two of these three scandals were concocted by the GOP outrage machine.

Meanwhile, the headline crawl on “Morning Joe” announced: “U.S. deficit shrinks far faster than expected.” But the words sat there silently, drowned out by noise about mostly made-up scandals.

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May 14, 2013 · 9:13 PM

Bernie Goldberg To O’Reilly: Obama Could ‘Literally’ Cure Cancer And GOP Would Still Hate Him

billbernie

 Many pundits have exposed the GOP for their utter disdain for President Obama…

Mediaite

Bernie Goldberg sat down with Bill O’Reillytonight for a round of media criticism that hit the liberal media for its months-long reluctance in covering Benghazi, with Goldberg arguing that it was a report by ABC News that finally “gave permission” to other news organizations to pursue the story. And while Goldberg differed with O’Reilly on the latter’s insistence that the AP monitoring story is not a scandal, he agreed that conservatives are too obsessed with tearing down Obama, saying that the president could cure cancer and the GOP would find a way to avoid giving him credit.

Goldberg claimed that liberal reporters have been playing down Benghazi because the White House wants that, but after ABC released a report on the changed talking points, “that gave permission” for the rest of the media to scrutinize Obama. He said that the media never really takes the word of conservative reporters seriously, that they need one of their own to jump on it first.

But on the Associated Press story, Goldberg challenged O’Reilly’ downplaying of the scandal, asking him how he would feel if Fox News was similarly targeted. O’Reilly defended the FBI for conducting a legal investigation into national security leaks, and while he did criticize the attorney general for denying involvement, he argued that it “hurts the cause of legitimate investigations” of the Obama administration by jumping to conclusions without the facts to back them up.

Goldberg agreed on this point, saying there are liberals who won’t acknowledge Benghazi as a scandal at all, but also conservatives who wouldn’t give credit to Obama even if he “literally” cured cancer, pointing to this new era of “raw partisanship” in Washington.

Watch the video courtesy of Fox News

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May 10, 2013 · 1:53 PM

The Last Word – Chilling details of what happened in Benghazi

Democratic Underground

“What emerged clearly in the hearing today is that there were no military assets within range that could have prevented what happened in Benghazi that night.” ~ Lawrence O’Donnell

 

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May 2, 2013 · 8:37 AM

Thursday Blog Roundup – 5-2-2013

Ted Cruz Will Never Be President

Encouraging polling on civil liberties

Obama says Gitmo ‘needs to be closed’

Can the GOP Take Control of the Senate?

Petraeus To Teach, Mentor Veterans At USC

Chris Kelly, of Rap Duo Kriss Kross, Dies in Georgia

Obama admin appeals ruling on ‘morning-after’ pill

Zero questions about jobs or labor at White House presser

Watch: 3 More in Custody in Boston Marathon Bombing Case

As historic Jason Collins news broke, Fox News stuck its head in the ground

 

 

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April 30, 2013 · 8:14 AM

Obama’s Judicial Nominees Blocked On All Sides By Senate Republicans

Obama Judicial Nominees

One of the most frequent commentaries about President Obama is that he doesn’t reach out to Republicans so that bi-partisanship can work.   For some reason, those same critics seem to have a myopic view of what the POTUS is up against.  The GOP leadership (as well as the rank and file members) want nothing more than to stop the president’s agenda at all costs.

This has been going on since day one when several GOP elite gathered together at a restaurant in DC the evening of Obama’s first inauguration in 2009 to map out a plan assuring his failure on every legislative achievement he put forward, according to the book Do Not Ask What Good We Do.

So, once again, the following article speaks to yet more attempts of achieving the goal set forth 4.5 years ago…

The Huffington Post

It’s bad enough that there are 82 vacant federal judge slots around the country, a level so high that many observers have deemed it a crisis situation.

But perhaps even more startling is the fact that of those 82 vacant slots, 61 of them don’t even have a nominee.

On its face, the absence of nominees would appear to be a sign that President Barack Obama is slacking. After all, he is responsible for nominating judges, and he did put forward fewer nominees at the end of his first term than his two predecessors. But a closer look at data on judicial nominees, and conversations with people involved in the nomination process, reveals the bigger problem is Republican senators quietly refusing to recommend potential judges in the first place.

The process for moving judicial nominees is simple enough. A president takes the lead on circuit court nominees, while, per longstanding tradition, a senator kickstarts the process for district court nominees, which make up the bulk of the federal court system. Senators make recommendations from their home states, and the president works with them to get at least some of the nominees confirmed – the idea being that senators, regardless of party, are motivated to advocate for nominees from their states. The White House may look at other nominees on its own, but typically won’t move forward without input from the corresponding senators. Once a nominee is submitted to the Senate, he or she receives a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. If approved, the nomination heads to the Senate floor for a full vote.

It’s hardly news that the judicial nomination process is gummed up. Democrats regularly blast Republicans for blocking Obama’s nominees after they clear the Senate Judiciary Committee with broad support, making them wait an average of 116 days for a confirmation vote. That’s three times longer than the average wait for President George W. Bush’s nominees. But these obstacles come at the end of the nomination process. It’s now clear that there’s a serious problem at the beginning, too.

It turns out that since Obama took office, senators from some states — particularly those represented by two Republicans — have simply refused to make recommendations, according to data recently published by the Alliance for Justice, a left-leaning association of more than 100 organizations focused on the federal judiciary.

Take Kansas, for example. The state is represented by Republican Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran, neither of whom has put forward nominees for a district court slotthere that has been vacant for 1,246 days. Their inaction hasn’t gone unnoticed — both senators have taken heat for not participating in the nomination process.

Or look at Texas, where Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz have not moved to fill seven vacant judicial slots, two of which have been vacant for 1,733 and 1,034 days, respectively, without a nominee. At least one Texas paper ran a piece suggesting Cornyn and former Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison were holding off on making judicial recommendations because they were hopeful Mitt Romney would become president in 2012.

Continue reading…

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April 28, 2013 · 12:47 AM

POTUS at White House Correspondence Dinner Last Night (Update from PoliticusUSA)

In my opinion, President Obama did a tremendous job at the WHCD.  See for yourself…

PoliticusUSA

Obama Jabs Rush Limbaugh and Fox News At White House Correspondents Dinner

President Obama entered to a new rap intro and joked that this is what Rush Limbaugh warned you about in the second term. Obama thanked everybody including his wife, then said, “Everybody loves Michelle. She’s on the cover of Vogue, high poll numbers, but I got my own magazine cover.” He then joked that he had to admit that that he is not the same strapping young Muslim Socialist that he used to be. Obama joked about going 2 for 22 on the basketball court at the White House Easter Egg Roll. He said, “Two hits, twenty misses. NBC executives asked, what’s my secret?”

The president joked about needing something new for the second term, then showed a picture of First Lady Obama’s bangs on his head. The president made a joke about Conan’s Tonight Show fiasco. (That one didn’t go over so well.) Obama later took a jab at CNN say he admired them covering all sides of the story in case one of them might be accurate. He joked about Axelrod working at MSNBC, because MSNBC used to work for Axelrod. Obama got in a joke about the History Channel’s The Bible and the devil looking like him. He said Fox News thought the portrayal was unfair to the devil.

Later, the president made a Sheldon Adelson joke centered on Adelson spending $100 million to defeat him. Obama said, “You’ve got to really dislike me to spend that kind of money. That’s Oprah money. You could have bought an island and named it Nobama for that kind of money.” He said Adelson would have been better off offering him the money to drop out of the race. He said he would have thought about it, but Michelle would have taken the money.

The president also joked that if Republicans were serious about minority outreach, they could start with him. Later he joked that he is taking his Republican outreach on the road. The president said, “A Texas barbeque with Ted Cruz. A Kentucky bluegrass concert with Rand Paul, and a book burning with Michele Bachmann.”

One of the highlights was a video of Steven Spielberg announcing that his next project will be Obama, with Daniel Day Lewis as Obama (Obama playing Obama), and Tracey Morgan as Joe Biden.

Obama wound things down by quoting Groucho Marx, and reminding Ted Cruz that he said Groucho not Karl Marx. The president closed on a serious note with thoughts and optimism for the people of Boston, West, TX, those hit by flooding in the Midwest.

This was one of President Obama’s better WHCD performances. The president was funny, but sincere. It was fun to see the president poke fun at himself, and it was also interesting to note that the White House hears every unhinged crazy right wing conspiracy theory out there.

The president is a natural performer, and his joke writers were really good. The WHCD also allows the president to blow off a little frustration, and Obama did that tonight with his jokes about the Republican refusal to work with him.

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April 27, 2013 · 5:59 PM

7 Funniest Obama Jokes at White House Correspondents Dinner Last Year (2012) and 2 More from Previous years…

Tonight President Obama will once again attend the White House Correspondence Association dinner.  If you’ve never seen him on the daïs, cracking jokes I recommend that you view the videos below to see just how good he is.  The dinner will be broadcast on C-Span as well as major news and cable outlets tonight starting at 9:00 pm.  The POTUS usually starts his shtick at 10:00 pm.

(2012)

(2011)

(2009)

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