Posts

Lawyer: Drone Strikes Literally Being Used as an Alternative to Guantanamo

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Yahya Arhab/EPAThe lawyer who first drew up White House policy on lethal drone strikes has accused the Obama administration of overusing them because of its reluctance to capture prisoners that would otherwise have to be sent to Guantánamo Bay.

John Bellinger, who was responsible for drafting the legal framework for targeted drone killings while working for George W Bush after 9/11, said he believed their use had increased since because President Obama was unwilling to deal with the consequences of jailing suspected al-Qaida members.

“This government has decided that instead of detaining members of al-Qaida [at Guantánamo] they are going to kill them,” he told a conference at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Obama this week pledged to renew efforts to shut down the jail but has previously struggled to overcome congressional opposition, in part due to US disagreements over how to handle suspected terrorists and insurgents captured abroad.

An estimated 4,700 people have now been killed by some 300 US drone attacks in four countries, and the question of the programme’s status under international and domestic law remains highly controversial.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mystery White House Official Takes Secret Service Shopping in Chicago (+video)

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WTC Staff

No one recognized the man and his wife as they shopped at the Chanel Store on Chicago’s tony Michigan Avenue strip. But that didn’t stop the couple from receiving Secret Service protection and a Chicago police escort.

After shopping, the mystery couple were escorted to two waiting black security vans followed by two police cars. A Secret Service agent halted me until the duo was “in the clear.”

Who was this mystery official? Is it a member of President Obama’s cabinet? Or a visiting head of state? Can anyone take a guess?

Why were precious local law enforcement resources diverted to this shopping excursion?

As I said, no one knew who these “shoppers” were. I stopped a group of young teen girls, who witnessed the Secret Service song and dance, and asked them if they knew who the mystery couple was.

Barack Obama’s half-brother from Kenya,” chirped one of the girls.

Watch video here:

Read more from this story HERE.

White House Dodges on Using Decades-Old Gun Statistics

/1 Comment/in /by

Photo Credit: DUCKofD3ATH

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney avoided acknowledging today that President Obama has been incorrectly using a 20-year-old statistic on background checks in his push for universal background checks.

President Obama has repeatedly said 40 percent of all gun sales don’t require a background check under current law, and Organizing for Action tweeted the claim last week as well, using the @BarackObama Twitter handle it runs.

But the numbers the White House is citing are several decades old and incorrectly cited, as The Washington Post reported last week, giving the claim a “three pinocchio” rating. The Post explains that while the White House has repeatedly said “40 percent of sales,” the study uses the number to refer to transactions, which includes gifts and inheritances as well as purchases.

The detail changes the results: when gifts, inheritances and prizes are accounted for, the same study shows 26.4 percent of people did not receive their gun through a federally license firearms dealer.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Insulting Salary Stunt

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: EPA/Tannen Maury

I once had a boss who was independently rich, and when I asked him for a raise, he turned me down, adding that he, too, had forsaken a raise that year. A surge of anger, resentment and sheer hatred welled up in me, and were it not that I needed the job, I would have gone for his throat. His unthinking and unthinkable attempt to make common cause with me brought to mind Anatole France’s observation that “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” Now it brings to mind Barack Obama.

The president yesterday announced that he would return 5 percent of his salary to the Treasury Department. This is an effort to make common cause with federal employees who may have to take a similar paycut. This is the way this tone-deaf White House put it:

The president has decided that to share in the sacrifice being made by public servants across the federal government that are affected by the sequester, he will contribute a portion of his salary back to the Treasury.
The president makes $400,000 a year…

Read more from this story HERE.

White House Refuses To Denounce Easter Sunday Attack On Conservatives

/8 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: CNN via nomorcocktails

By Joe Newby. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney refused to denounce an attack made against conservatives during Sunday’s service at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., Breitbart.com reported Monday.

“It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back … for blacks to be back in the back of the bus … for women to be back in the kitchen … for immigrants to be back on their side of the border,” Dr. Luis Leon said at the Easter service attended by the Obamas.

But when asked about the remarks during Monday’s press briefing, Carney refused to repudiate the comments, saying that Leon is not a politician or an elected official.

Jay Carney refuses to repudiate attack on conservatives during Easter Sunday sermon. Initially, Carney brushed off the question by Fox News’ Ed Henry by saying that he wasn’t at the service and had not spoken to the president about it.

But Henry pushed the issue. Read more from this story HERE.

Pastor at Obama’s Easter Church Service: ‘Captains of the religious right’ want ‘blacks in the back of the bus’, women ‘back in the kitchen’

By Madeleine Morgenstern. The pastor at the Washington, D.C. church where the Obama family celebrated Easter on Sunday said members of the religious right want blacks “in the back of the bus,” women “back in the kitchen” and immigrants “back on their side of the border.”

“It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back…for blacks to be back in the back of the bus…for women to be back in the kitchen…for immigrants to be back on their side of the border,” Rev. Dr. Luis Leon said in his sermon, according to the White House press pool report.

Reuters reporter Jeff Mason tweeted that Leon also said the religious right wants gays in the closet. Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Former Secret Service Agent Refuses To Take Bullet For Obama On Ending White House Tours

/0 Comments/in , /by

When the President of the United States makes a petty, underhanded political decision and it fails miserably, can he blame the men and women who are sworn to sacrifice their own lives to protect his?

Yes He Can.

Watch video here:

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Sperling Says GOP Will Cave On Taxes After Seeing ‘Pain’ Caused By Sequester

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: KAZVorpalA senior White House official says congressional Republicans who see the damage caused by billions in automatic spending cuts will eventually agree to raise taxes.

Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council and assistant to the president for economic policy, said that Republicans will eventually “choose bipartisan compromise over an ideological position,” on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

“As this pain starts to gradually spread to communities” hit by $85 billion in cuts “more Republican colleagues who are concerned about this harm to their constituents will choose bipartisan compromise on revenue raising tax reform with serious entitlement reform,” said Sperling.

“They’ll choose this bipartisan compromise over what is an ideological position that every single penny of deficit reduction going forward must be on the middle class or seniors or children, and that there can’t be one penny that comes from closing loopholes or tax expenditures,” he added.

The automatic across-the-board cuts took effect on Friday after congressional leaders and President Obama were unable to broker a last-minute replacement deal. Democrats are calling for new tax revenues in any deal to replace the sequester, while Republicans insist that only other targeted cuts and entitlement reforms be included.

Watch video here:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read more from this story HERE.

Huckabee 2016: ‘The Honest Answer Is Maybe’

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: KUTVHe was Mitt Romney’s political rival in the 2008 Republican presidential primaries. Like Romney, Mike Huckabee lost, but he gained an undeniably strong presence on radio and television.

Huckabee also picked up—among some people—a sense of being anti-Mormon.

“It really hurts me to hear that,” said Huckabee, in an exclusive interview with 2News Thursday. “Anybody who knows me knows the respect I have for the Mormon Church is extraordinary, because there has been moral clarity from the Mormon Church on such issues as Prop 8 in California, and pro-life issues.”

The former Baptist minister, former Governor of Arkansas, was in Salt Lake to speak at a convention for a company known as Express Employment Professionals at the Grand America. He also did his daily radio show from Salt Lake, a program aired on nearly 200 stations around the country.

“So this notion that I am somehow anti-Mormon is absolutely not true, never has been,” said Huckabee, who counts former Utah governors Mike Leavitt and John Huntsman—both LDS—as friends. Huckabee said he supported and campaigned “all over the country” for Romney in 2012, and thought Romney would win.

Romney’s political career seems over, but Huckabee said he might make another run for the White House, as soon as 2016. “I’m not ruling it out. The honest answer is maybe,” he told 2News. “I know a little bit of the depth of the water I’d be diving into, so I’ve got to make that decision very carefully and prayerfully.”

Read more from this story HERE.

White House Denies Involvement In ICE’s Decision To Release Detainees (+video)

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: DonkeyHoteyThe White House and the Department of Homeland Security were unaware of Immigration Customs and Enforcement’s decision to release detainees until the agency announced it, administration officials said Wednesday.

“This was a decision made by career officials at ICE without any input from the White House, as a result of fiscal uncertainty over the continuing resolution, as well as possible sequestration,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday.

Personnel at Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington were also unaware of the decision until the announcement was made, a department official told POLITICO.

ICE announced Tuesday that it has released several hundred undocumented immigrants in recent weeks as funding cuts loom. The detainees will instead be monitored in less expensive ways, the agency said.

[Editor’s note: Notice how precisely Carney’s prepared statement is tailored to the question asked by this reporter, if I didn’t know better I might think the whole thing was staged. Surely the White House Press Corps wouldn’t go to such lengths to bail the President out of a sticky situation?]

Read more from this story HERE.

Parks and Recreation, Obama Style

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: APSen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) sent a letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Thursday asking the administration to terminate its “Connecting Your Community” campaign in which federal officials meet with leaders in 100 cities across the country to discuss ways the federal government can better assist local governments. The campaign began last week.

“Much is being made about the possible impact of sequestration on government programs for the poor and middle class, food safety, and the defense of our nation,” Coburn wrote in the letter.

“It is somewhat surprising, therefore, for the White House to be headlining a 100 city government spending tour, transporting representatives from multiple departments and various agencies around the country to promote federal largesse,” he continued.

Mandatory, across the board spending cuts totaling more than $1 trillion will occur on March 1 unless Congress and the president act to prevent the so-called “sequestration.”

Coburn is the ranking member on the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The letter is addressed to Jeffrey Zients, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. Coburn asks in the letter that the White House “cancel the 100 city government spending tour” even though it is “well intentioned.” He also requests spending and personnel information for the tour.

Read more from this story HERE.