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Tom Coburn To White House: With Cuts On Way, Why A 100-City Spending Tour?

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Photo Credit: Medill DCWith sequestration budget cuts set to take effect in less than a week, Republican Sen. Tom Coburn has sent a letter to the White House asking for more information about a new initiative to help cities receive federal grants and other aid. The initiative involves White House and administration officials traveling to 100 cities around the country, helping local governments apply for federal money.

Given the president’s warning about dire effects from the coming cuts, Coburn wrote to Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Jeffrey Zients, “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 largess. If Washington is truly cutting spending on missions many consider vital, how can we at the same time promise and promote more financial assistance, much less afford this mammoth 100 city cross country tour?”

The White House has not announced the tour. Coburn relied on a news report from the first stop, February 14 in Beaverton, Oregon. “The city will host the feds at a daylong symposium to discuss how government agencies, nonprofits and businesses can help the city,” the Oregonian reported. “The event is the first in a new White House ‘Connecting Your Community’ program, in which national leaders plan to meet with representatives of 100 cities to pair federal programs with local needs.”

The Oregonian reported that officials from the White House, Environmental Protection Agency, Housing Department, Highway Administration, and other agencies traveled to Oregon for the event. The city of Beaverton has hired a consultant to help it win more federal grants, the paper said, looking for more federal dollars to add to millions in current grants from HUD, the CDC, the EPA, and others. The paper said the remaining 99 cities on the federal spending tour have not been announced.

“If Washington is truly cutting spending on missions many consider vital, how can we at the same time promise and promote more financial assistance, much less afford this mammoth 100 city cross country tour?” wrote Coburn. “While well intentioned, I urge you to cancel the 100 city government spending tour.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama, The Puppet Master, Weaves his Tales with the Mastery of Technology

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Photo Credit: Pete SouzaPresident Barack Obama is a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House.

Not for the reason that conservatives suspect: namely, that a liberal press willingly and eagerly allows itself to get manipulated.

Instead, the mastery mostly flows from a White House that has taken old tricks for shaping coverage (staged leaks, friendly interviews) and put them on steroids using new ones (social media, content creation, precision targeting). And it’s an equal opportunity strategy: Media across the ideological spectrum are left scrambling for access.

The results are transformational. With more technology, and fewer resources at many media companies, the balance of power between the White House and press has tipped unmistakably toward the government. This is an arguably dangerous development, and one that the Obama White House — fluent in digital media and no fan of the mainstream press — has exploited cleverly and ruthlessly. And future presidents from both parties will undoubtedly copy and expand on this approach.

“The balance of power used to be much more in favor of the mainstream press,” said Mike McCurry, who was press secretary to President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Nowadays, he said, “The White House gets away with stuff I would never have dreamed of doing. When I talk to White House reporters now, they say it’s really tough to do business with people who don’t see the need to be cooperative.”

McCurry and his colleagues in the Clinton White House were hardly above putting their boss in front of gentle questions: Clinton and Vice President Al Gore often preferred the safety of “Larry King Live” to the rhetorical combat of the briefing room. But Obama and his aides have raised it to an art form: The president has shut down interviews with many of the White House reporters who know the most and ask the toughest questions. Instead, he spends way more time talking directly to voters via friendly shows and media personalities. Why bother with The New York Times beat reporter when Obama can go on “The View”?

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WH: Obama Called Hillary at 10PM on Night of Benghazi Attack–About Same Time Clinton First Publicly Linked Attack to YouTube Video

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Photo Credit: Evan Vucci President Barack Obama called Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at approximately 10 p.m. on the night of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told CNSNews.com.

That was more than six hours after the attacks started, more than an hour before Tryone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed–and about the time that Clinton first released a statement linking the attacks to “inflammatory material posted on the Internet,” a reference to an anti-Muslim video on YouTube.

“Like every president before him, he has a national security adviser and deputy national security adviser,” Carney told CNSNews.com on Tuesday. “He was in regular communication with his national security team directly, through them, and spoke with the secretary of state at approximately 10 p.m. He called her to get an update on the situation.”

Carney was responding to questions from CNSNews.com about who Obama communicated with on the evening of Sept. 11, 2012. Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told the Senate Armed Services Committee they first notified the president of the attack during a Sept. 11, 2012 meeting that began at 5 p.m. and ran for about 30 minutes. They also told the committee they did not talk to Obama or anyone else at the White House after that meeting.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, State Department Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, who worked for CIA, were killed in the Benghazi attacks.

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Obama Made No Phone Calls On Night Of Benghazi Attack, White House Says

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President Obama didn’t make any phone calls the night of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House said in a letter to Congress released Thursday. “During the entire attack, the president of the United States never picked up the phone to put the weight of his office in the mix,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who had held up Mr. Obama’s defense secretary nominee to force the information to be released.

Mr. Graham said that if Mr. Obama had picked up the phone, at least two of the Americans killed in the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi might still be alive because he might have been able to push U.S. aid to get to the scene faster.

The White House has said Mr. Obama was kept up to date on the attack by his staff, though after being alerted to the attack in a pre-scheduled afternoon meeting he never spoke again with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin E. Dempsey or then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mr. Panetta told Congress last week that he knew immediately the attacks were a terrorist assault, though the White House downplayed that notion in the first five days after the attack.

Republican senators said they will still push for more information on who changed the talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who went on the Sunday talk shows after the attacks and blamed protests against an anti-Islam video.

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Toledo Football Player To Forgo Last Year Of Eligibility To Be With Sick Fiancee

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Photo Credit: The BladeA football player at the University of Toledo who has been playing the sport since he was a kid told his coach that he will forgo his last eligible season so he could be at his fiancee’s side while she undergoes treatment for leukemia, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.

Ben Pike, 22, a 6 foot, 3-inch 260-pound defensive lineman who is coming off his best season and was likely to start next year, learned in January that leukemia returned to his fiancée Ashlee Barrett, the report said.

“I know in some people’s terms, he’s giving up things,” Becky Pike, Ben’s mother, told the paper. “But he’s really not giving up. He’s not giving up anything. He’s really fighting for life. And he’s just turned his forces to he’s going so win a battle for life instead of winning on the football field.”

The attraction between the two appeared to be immediate. They met during a bible study class. Barrett, herself a basketball player at Toledo, was taken by Pike’s confidence when he would discuss various topics in class, the report said. Pike couldn’t help but notice the pretty blonde’s energy.

They began dating and fell in love. Pike took Barrett to Washington, D.C., in December 2011 and proposed, the paper reported. He somehow managed to talk White House security guards into giving them clearance so he could pop the question on the main driveway leading to the White House. They set the date for the summer of 2013.

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Embattled Sen. Menendez Still Welcome At Obama White House

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Photo Credit: Mark WilsonWhile Democratic leaders have softened the tone of their allegiance to embattled New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the White House remains publicly unconcerned about working closely with the powerful Democrat.

Menendez is one of four senators meeting with President Barack Obama Wednesday afternoon at the White House to discuss immigration reform, according to Fox News’ Chad Pergram.

A White House official announced the meeting in a statement to reporters.

“Later this afternoon, the [p]resident will meet with Senate Democrats leading the effort to pass bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform. The meeting is part of the ongoing effort to continue to make progress towards bipartisan reform, which the [a]dministration believes should happen as quickly as possible,” the official wrote.

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Gen. Allen ‘Pushed Out’ For Top NATO Post By White House, Source Says

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Photo Credit: APArmy Gen. John Allen is planning to retire rather than be re-nominated for the powerful post of NATO supreme allied commander-Europe, after White House officials forced him to step aside, a source familiar with the discussions told Fox News on Wednesday.

The source told Fox that Allen was leery of getting into a confirmation battle that would dig into the embarrassing issue of his emails with Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, but the real reason was the White House power play.

“He’s out,” the source said. “I know he is retiring. He was pushed out of the door.” The official Pentagon announcement is expected soon.

The source also said White House officials are optimistic that after a contentious battle, former Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel will be confirmed shortly as defense secretary, and he can help pick a new person for the post.

Previously, the White House was thought to be keeping the nomination open while Allen mulled whether to seek the post.
Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said earlier in the day that he told Allen on Tuesday that Allen needs to take time to decide what is best for him and his family.

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More Holes in White House Denial Of Arms To Jihadists

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Photo Credit: WNDThe White House denial of supplying arms to the al-Qaida-saturated Syrian rebels may be somewhat more difficult for some to swallow now that it has been revealed the arms-to-rebels plan had been endorsed by the leaders of the CIA, Pentagon and State Department.

If, indeed, President Obama rejected the arms plan, as reported earlier by the New York Times, it would mean the White House went against the recommendations of outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-CIA Director David Petraeus.

The plan was said to have been generated by Petraeus and Clinton.

During Senate hearings on Benghazi yesterday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., asked Panetta and Dempsey whether they had supported a plan “that we provide weapons to the resistance in Syria.”

“We do,” Panetta replied.

“You did support that?” McCain asked again.

“We did,” added Dempsey, who was sitting next to Panetta.

Neither Dempsey nor Panetta elaborated on their positions.

This past weekend, the New York Times reported the White House rebuffed the Clinton-Petraeus plan developed last summer to arm and train Syrian rebels.

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NRA Chief: Public Cannot ‘Trust’ White House On Gun Control

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Photo Credit: DUCKofD3ATHThe head of the National Rifle Association (NRA) said Sunday the public should not trust the White House to pursue limited changes to gun-control laws.

Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the NRA, accused the Obama administration of wanting to seek more restrictions on guns than they currently are saying, arguing that the White House was similarly deceptive on the president’s healthcare law.

“I think what they’ll do is they’ll turn this universal [background] check on the law-abiding into a universal registry on law-abiding people,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

When pressed by host Chris Wallace on the fact that the White House has said nothing about a universal registry, LaPierre responded, “And ‘ObamaCare’ wasn’t a tax until they needed it to be a tax. I don’t think you can trust these people.”

LaPierre was referring to the administration arguing the healthcare law amounts to a tax before the Supreme Court — an argument the high court agreed with in upholding the individual-mandate portion of the law as a valid use of taxing power.

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White House Petition Demands Secret Service be Replaced by Gun-Free Zone

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Photo Credit: Saul Loeb/Getty ImagesA petition demanding that the Secret Service be replaced by a floating gun-free zone has crossed the original threshold for White House action, a blog post at Weasel Zippers said Monday.

“Gun Free Zones are supposed to protect our children, and some politicians wish to strip us of our right to keep and bear arms,” the petition says. “Those same politicians and their families are currently under the protection of armed Secret Service agents. If Gun Free Zones are sufficient protection for our children, then Gun Free Zones should be good enough for politicians.”

As of this writing, the petition has over 31,000 signatures. Unfortunately, the White House recently increased the threshold for action from 25,000 to 100,000 signatures.

Since the Sandy Hook shooting, the concept of gun-free zones has come under fire. For critics, the designations amount to little more than a magnet for criminals with guns. The signs announcing gun-free zones, for them, are nothing more than an invitation to armed criminals.

Read more from this story HERE.