The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has released a comparison of the budgets offered by President Obama, House Republicans, and Senate Democrats. They’re a lot similar than you’d expect given how much the two parties are at each others’ throats about things like Social Security and taxes, huh? Anyway, for those who enjoy charts and graphs, the CBO’s blog post on its budget projections will not disappoint. (h/t Ezra Klein) source
The Obama administration asked Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Wednesday morning to reintroduce legislation that would help reporters protect the identity of their sources from federal officials, a White House official told The Huffington Post.
The scope of the bill and how effective it would be remains unclear, however, given prior administration opposition to a “reporter shield” law.
The request is opportunistically timed, coming just days after it was revealed that the Department of Justice had subpoenaed telephone records of 20 AP phone lines and more than 100 reporters and editors. The White House has faced heavy criticism for the subpoena, though the president has said that he was unaware of it and Attorney General Eric Holder said that he had recused himself from the investigation.
While the timing absolutely can’t be ignored, it’s hard for us not to get behind any effort to further protect reporters and their sources from federal prosecution. Still, if the Obama Administration was hoping to save face with a new reporter shield law, we suspect we aren’t the only ones who think this is too little too late.
If you’ve got the IRS operating in anything less than a neutral and nonpartisan way, then that is outrageous. It is contradictory to our traditions, and people have to be held accountable.President Obama • Commenting on an admission that the IRS targeted conservative groups, many associated with the tea party, during the 2012 election cycle, following an apology from an IRS official on Friday and this morning’s leak of the Inspector General’s report to ABC News. President Obama’s comments came during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, who’s currently visiting Washington D.C. to discuss the war in Syria. source
Five Presidents.
Political beliefs aside, this is a pretty cool thing to see. We can’t help but wonder what Obama and Carter are laughing at.
What we’ve said to the girls is, ‘If you guys ever decided you’re going to get a tattoo, then mommy and me will get the exact same tattoo in the same place. And we’ll go on YouTube and show it off as a family tattoo.’ And our thinking is that might dissuade them from thinking that somehow that’s a good way to rebel.President Obama • Kiboshing his daughters’ future attempts to rebel against him and Michelle.
I guess nothing rhymes with Treasury.White House spokesman Jay Carney • Responding to questions about a newly released Jay-Z track which seems to suggest that Hov and Beyonce got permission from the White House to travel to Cuba last week. When pressed on the matter, Carney once again denied that President Obama ever spoke with Mr. and Mrs. Knowles-Carter about their trip, saying that Open Letter “is only a song.” source
See, the Western tradition of admiration for a beautiful woman is an ancient and wonderful thing. While the Mohammedans like to wrap their women up in black sacks, we glorify them. From the Vatican to the Louvre, we deck the halls with them. And if it’s OK with the pope, it’s OK with us.The Daily Caller’s Christopher Bedford, opining on the President Obama-Kamala Harris hoopla and, in the process, giving Reince Priebus yet another headache on the path to rebranding. source
The public, stated reason for this is to show solidarity with federal workers who were furloughed due to the sequester. An alternate explanation: The President warned for weeks that the sequester would have a disastrous effect on the country, but its effects since hitting haven’t been acutely felt by the citizenry at large. These pledges by the president and his allies serve as a public reminder that yes, the sequester did have tangible, measurable effects—at least for the workers who’ve been furloughed—and thus retroactively lend credence to the president’s warnings. source
President Barack Obama has chosen veteran Secret Service agent Julia Pierson as the first woman to become director of the agency that protects the president, two officials told Reuters on Tuesday.
Pierson has been chief of staff at the Secret Service, which last year became embroiled in a scandal involving agents taking prostitutes to their hotel rooms in Colombia before Obama visited the country.
Pierson will replace former Secret Service Mark Sullivan, who retired last month after 30 years with the agency. Unlike many of President Obama’s recent appointments, Pierson will not need approval from the Senate, meaning she’ll actually get to start working sometime this decade. source
Put yourself in their shoes — look at the world through their eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents, every single day. It is not just when settler violence against Palestinians goes unpunished. It is not right to prevent Palestinians from farming their lands; to restrict a student’s ability to move around the West Bank; or to displace Palestinian families from their homes. Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land.President Barack Obama • Urging Israeli citizens to pressure their own government to work harder on attaining the two-state solution which so many world leaders claim to want to see. President Obama told the crowd that “as a politician” he could assure them that their leaders would never do what wasn’t demanded of them. According to the NY Times, President Obama’s remarks were met with raucous applause, despite the generally skeptic view many Israelis have of the President. source
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We have been clear that the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people would be a serious and tragic mistake. The Assad regime must understand that they will be held accountable for the use of chemical weapons or their transfer to terrorists.President Barack Obama - Commenting on the alleged usage of chemical weapons in attacks which left 25 dead and dozens injured in the Syrian city of Aleppo yesterday. Both those loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Syrian opposition forces have blamed their opponents for the attack; however, the perpetrators of Tuesday’s attack remain a mystery at this time. Many suspect the Assad regime, given previous reports about the Syrian government’s possession of such weapons, but calls for a formal investigation into the attack have gone unanswered thus far. source
We don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt. In fact, for the next ten years, it’s gonna be in a sustainable place. The question is, can we do it smarter, can we do it better? And– you know, what I’m saying to them is I am prepared to do some tough stuff. Neither side’s gonna get 100%….But ultimately, it may be that– the differences are just– too wide. It may be that ideologically, if their position is ‘We can’t do any revenue’ or ‘We can only do revenue if we gut Medicare or gut Social Security or gut Medicaid,’ then we’re probably not gonna be able to get a deal.President Barack Obama • Speaking with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulus about the chances of Congressional Democrats and Republicans reaching any sort of compromise on Washington’s latest (semi-manufactured) budget crisis. source
President Barack Obama will meet with top congressional leaders on Friday to discuss the deep, automatic U.S. government spending cuts slated to go into effect that day, congressional and White House officials said on Wednesday.
Obama is set to meet with Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader.
The meeting would be the first between the leaders this year, despite weeks of haggling over whether and how Washington could avoid the cuts known as the “sequester,” which the White House has warned will cause damage to U.S. economic growth.
Considering he has yet to meet with Congressional leaders this year, and scheduled a post-sequester meeting two days before the cuts are triggered, does this seem like a gamble by the President to lay blame for the sequestration at the feet of Republicans to anybody else?
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