By Adrienne Ross
...O'Reilly did his part to try to get the President on record about
whether or not then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told him within
minutes that the Libya attack was a "terrorist" act, and Obama's
response was to hem and haw--clearly unwilling to be forthright,
focusing instead on calling Benghazi a "dangerous place."
In addition, President Obama refused to answer why Health and Human
Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius still has a job after the
disastrous Obamacare rollout--and whether the terminal illness of his
presidency was his "if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep your
healthcare plan" promise, which, of course, was not true.
No doubt accustomed to more softball questions from the media, Obama
seemed perturbed at times by O'Reilly's queries, and he blamed Bill and
Fox News for the distrust Americans have for him--odd since he could
have taken advantage of this opportunity to clarify his positions by
actually answering the questions. He chose, instead, to deflect.
The interview found the president uncomfortable from the outset,
although O'Reilly towed the line between forcefully asking the right
questions and showing respect for the president of the United States. It
grew increasingly painful, and even embarrassing, when Bill read a
question from a woman who asked why Obama found it necessary to
"fundamentally transform" the nation. As Breitbart News reported,
his response suggested that he was not even aware that he had made such
a statement, and O'Reilly reminded him that those were his own words.
By Wynton Hall
In an apparent reversal of his past campaign statements, President Barack Obama told Fox News's Bill O'Reilly in a Sunday interview that he does not believe in fundamentally transforming America.
O'Reilly read Obama a question from a viewer who asked, "Mr.
President, why do you feel it is necessary to fundamentally transform
the nation that has afforded you so much opportunity and success?"
"I don't think we need to fundamentally transform the nation," said Obama.
"But those are your words," explained O'Reilly.
"I think what we have to do is make sure that here in America, if you work hard, you can get ahead," said Obama.
On October 30, 2008, then-candidate Obama said at a Columbia, Missouri, campaign event, "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."
‘Not even a SMIDGEN of corruption’: Obama DOUBLES DOWN on IRS targeting denial
By Brendan Bordelon
President Barack Obama again denied any wrongdoing by the IRS over
their targeting of conservative tea party groups, telling Fox News’ Bill
O’Reilly there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” in the way the
tax enforcer processed tea partiers’ 501(c)4 paperwork.
O’Reilly spoke with the president just before the Super Bowl on
Sunday, touching on the Obamacare rollout and the Benghazi attacks as
well as the IRS scandal. He asked Obama if it “was the biggest mistake
of your presidency to tell the nation, over and over, if you like your
insurance you can keep your insurance.”
“Oh, Bill, you’ve got a long list of my mistakes in my presidency,” Obama began, waving dismissively at O’Reilly.
...The interview became more contentious when O’Reilly brought up
Benghazi. The Fox reporter tried to pin the president down on whether he
knew that the attacks were carried out by terrorists — despite White
House claims they were part of a spontaneous protest caused by an
anti-Islamic Youtube video.
Obama tried to explain away the controversy by blaming the fog of
war. But again, O’Reilly persisted. “Your detractors believe that you
did not tell the world it was a terror attack because your campaign did
not want that out,” he claimed.
“And they believe that because folks like you are telling them that!”
Obama shot back, taking a not-so-subtle dig at Fox. “And what I’m
saying is that is inaccurate.”
The president also refused to acknowledge that the IRS illegally
targeted tea party groups in the run-up to the 2012 election.
“Absolutely wrong,” he said when O’Reilly broached the subject. “These
kinds of things keep on surfacing, in part, because you and your TV
station will promote them… We’ve had multiple hearings on it!”
“So you’re saying there was no corruption there at all?” O’Reilly asked.
“Absolutely not,” the president replied. “There were some bone-headed decisions out of a local office.”
“But no mass corruption?” O’Reilly persisted.
“Not even mass corruption,” a visibly-annoyed Obama replied. “Not even a smidgen of corruption.”
By Mike Flynn
...Whatever strategy the DC GOP is employing, though, is clearly
backfiring. All the official Democrat campaign committees collectively
raised around $200 million in 2013. The Republican committees raised
just over $170 million. This disparity comes when the GOP hold on the
House is solid and the party stands a very real chance of taking control
of the Senate. It ought to be swimming in donations. The long-standing
GOP advantage on fundraising has evaporated.
Except.
The most interesting data from Friday's reports is the surging
financial strength of conservative SuperPACs. Karl Rove's three
SuperPACs collectively raised $6.1 million last year. The Tea Party
Patriots Citizens Fund, where I am Political Director, alone raised $6.4
million. The four largest conservative SuperPACs raised $20 million.
GOP establishment SuperPACs raised just over $7 million.
Donors haven't stopped giving. They have just stopped giving the Republican party.
The existential flaw in the party's self-declared war against
conservatives of the Tea Party is that they represent the base of the
party. As the Whigs will tell you, a party should not ignore the
convictions and sentiments of its most loyal members.
Keep in mind, this shift away from the GOP to more conservative
organizations occurred even before the irrational attempt of GOP
leadership to push through an amnesty bill. Conservatives were lectured
that the government shutdown was ill-adivsed because it "distracted"
from the failures of "ObamaCare."
Okay. So, while the country is fully understanding the failures of
ObamaCare, the establishment GOP wants to pivot to an issue championed
by President Obama and Chuck Schumer? Serious question: Are they trying
to blow the midterms?
What is most fascinating about the FEC reports is that is almost no
longer matters what the GOP does. There are new people in town. For the
last four years they have had the grass-roots. Now, they also have the
money.
By Bryan Hughes
President Obama
this week will outline executive actions to get high-speed Internet
into more American classrooms and hold multiple meetings with Democrats
increasingly concerned about the party's fate in the 2014 midterm elections.
Obama will announce hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from
tech companies to bring enhanced computer and broadband equipment to
U.S. schools, the latest example of his administration taking unilateral
action to make good on his State of the Union pledges.
“You'll hear the president talk about ConnectEd — this is an
opportunity where several private American companies are going to commit
over a half billion dollars to ensure that our schools across the
country have the kind of technology so that our kids can compete in this
economy,” White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said on NBC’s
“Meet the Press,” previewing the Tuesday event.
...On Monday, the president will meet with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in the Oval Office. The gathering is closed to the press, however.
And on Tuesday evening, Obama will host the House Democratic caucus
at the White House for a “roundtable and reception.” The president
Wednesday will also deliver remarks at a Senate Democratic conference.
The week’s events are part of a White House effort to appease
Democrats wary of how the president will influence November’s midterm
elections. The White House has already reopened its internal political
shop, coordinating money and messaging efforts with congressional
allies.
However, Democrats have openly questioned whether Obama, particularly
his administration's botched rollout of public health exchanges, could
jeopardize efforts to retain the Senate. And many progressives have
already written off the possibility of winning back the House.
The president on Thursday will speak at the National Prayer
Breakfast, an event that has come with drama for the White House. Last
year, Dr. Benjamin Carson, a neurosurgeon who has since become a
national conservative figure, ripped
Obamacare while sharing the stage with the president.
Obama will round out his week by meeting Thursday with Haitian President Michel Martelly at the White House.
By Joseph Lawler
Janet Yellen will be sworn in as the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve
at 9 a.m. on Monday morning, making her the most important economic
policymaker and one of the most powerful women in the world.
...Also on Monday morning, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will speak at the Bipartisan Policy Center about the debt ceiling. The statutory debt limit, which was suspended in the deal to end the government shutdown
in October, will become binding on Feb. 7 and Lew has said it must be
raised by late February to avoid a debt default. The Obama
administration has said it will refuse to negotiate with the GOP over raising the debt ceiling. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, however, said Sunday that he is "hopeful that the president and the Senate
will work with us in the House to actually do what has typically been
done with debt ceilings, which is making some progress towards
addressing the spending problem in Washington."
On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office
will provide an updated look at the state of fiscal affairs in the U.S.
with its release of the Budget and Economic Outlook, which will provide
economic and budgetary projects through 2024.
On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics
will release the jobs report for February. Analysts are expecting about
180,000 new jobs for the month, following a disappointing December
reading of just 74,000. It is also possible that December's number will
be revised upward.
By Laura Barron-Lopez
Senators will hold a hearing on Tuesday to examine the chemical spill in West Virginia that left roughly 300,000 people without water.
West
Virginia Sens. Joe Manchin (D) and Jay Rockefeller (D) have called for
stronger water regulations in response to the spill and are
co-sponsoring a bill with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) that would bulk
up states’ powers on oversight of chemical facilities.
The
hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee on
Water and Wildlife will review the “effectiveness of the policies and
procedures” used to protect drinking water sources.
The senators
will also consider what added measure might be necessary to ensure
drinking water sources are safe and protected from hazards.
...Also on Tuesday,
the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will consider two of
President Obama’s nominations to the Interior Department: Rhea Suh as
assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife Parks and Janice Schneider to
be assistant secretary for Land and Minerals Management.
On the House side of the Capitol, a working group on Tuesday will release its final report and recommendations for improving the Endangered Species Act.
A
House panel held a hearing on the endangered species law in December,
where some Republicans voiced concern over the disruption to commerce
they say the law creates.
The Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday will hold a hearing on strengthening fishing communities and increasing flexibility in fisheries management.
Environmental hearings continue on Wednesday,
as the House Science Committee will take a look at the science behind
the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulations, with a specific look
at how it is applied in Texas.
Later on Wednesday,
a House subpanel will take a look at the impacts of the Bureau of Land
Management’s “red-tape” on the nation’s energy production.
Off Capitol Hill, the Brookings Institution will hold a discussion on the future of electric utilities on Tuesday.
On Wednesday,
the Environmental Law Institute will host a former White House official
for a conversation on key legal environment and energy issues facing
the Obama administration this year.
Gary Guzy, a former White House Council on Environmental Quality deputy director, will speak at the event.
Finally, on Thursday the Brookings Institution will hold a discussion on the clean energy challenges facing China.
PK'S NOTE: Read the whole things. It's good.
By Victor Davis Hanson
On almost every contemporary issue there is a populist, middle-class
argument to be made against elite liberalism. Yet the Republican class
in charge seems ossified in its inability to make a counter-argument for
the middle class. Never has the liberal agenda been so vulnerable, a
logical development when bad ideas have had five years to prove
themselves as very bad ideas. When Obama is all done he will have taken
high presidential popularity ratings, a supermajority in the Senate, and
a large margin in the House and lost them all — if only the Republicans
can make an adequate case that they represent the middle class, the
Democrats only the very wealthy and the very dependent.
...In 2014 Republicans are going to be kamikazeed
by very wealthy, highly educated, and relentless operatives in the
Boston-New York-Washington, D.C., nexus, with backup from the San Diego
to San Francisco bookend coastal corridor. These critics mostly rest at
the top of the capitalist heap, and will assail those who are not, on
grounds that they are unfair to every hyphenated group in America.
To survive, Republicans must go on the offensive and point out that
their accusers never live the lives they advocate for others. Liberal
feminists seem to be John Edwards and Bill Clinton.
Liberal men of the people are Al Gore, John Kerry, and Jon Corzine.
Their populists who deplore outsourcing, offshore accounts, and
non-unions are Apple and Facebook grandees who embrace all three. White
privilege is not the fate of the West Virginian or West Texan working at
Target, but the tiny, inbred old-boy and old-girl world of prep-school
to Ivy League to the insider pull of Dad and Mom to land up with a
phoned-in job in journalism, politics, finance, entertainment, the arts,
and academia on the East and West coasts, followed by pro forma praise
of diversity — for others. Open-borders zealots have their children
behind the walls of private academies.
Surely there is a populist case to be made — or is the Republican
establishment to manage a permanent, sober, and judicious out-party, as
it is demagogued to death by the privileged?
By Gabrielle Mays
...On Wednesday, fifth through eighth grade students played the game called “Cross the Line”.
Parents say their children were asked personal questions like, do your parents drink and has anyone in your family been in jail?
Students were also asked to step forward if they answered yes to any of the questions.
Neither the school principal nor the district superintendent would
answer questions on camera, but in a written statement, the principal
said participation was not required and students could have said no.
However, parents claim their students told them that if they didn’t participate, they’d receive an in-school suspension.
Sarah Maitland was one of the students who played the game.
“She asked if you ever wanted to commit suicide to step forward and
then after that she asked if you ever experienced or wanted to cut, to
step forward,” said Maitland.
The school says the activity is a part of a bullying prevention program.
A few parents met with the superintendent, the principal and the
assistant principal Friday morning to express their concerns with the
game.
“They basically told us that all the students were lying…all the
students got together and planned it out and if they weren’t lying, it
was all misperceptions. They didn’t specifically say do your parents do
drugs,” said Amanda Fifarek, mother of 7th grade student.
School administrators said, “The intent of the activity was to build stronger, more respectful relationships among students.”
However, parents said they believe it actually makes it easier for students to bully each other.
“It was too personal. It’s just things your kids don’t need to be disclosing to other kids,” Fifarek said.
On Friday the school sent home a letter explaining more about the
game and why it was used, but the parents who oppose it say it’s not
enough. They still want answers.
Parents say they were not told that the game was going to be played.
The school says if there’s another such activity, it will let parents know ahead of time.
By Josh Rogin
In a closed-door meeting, two
senators say, the Secretary of State admitted to them that he no longer
believes the administration’s approach to the crisis in Syria is
working. Peace talks have failed, he conceded, and now it's time to arm
the moderate opposition—before local al Qaeda fighters try to attack the
United States.
Secretary of State John
Kerry has lost faith in his own administration’s Syria policy, he told
fifteen U.S. Congressmen in a private, off-the-record meeting, according
to two of the senators who were in the room.
Kerry also said he
believes the regime of Bashar al Assad is failing to uphold its promise
to give up its chemical weapons according to schedule; that the Russians
are not being helpful in solving the Syrian civil war; and that the
Geneva 2 peace talks that he helped organize are not succeeding. But
according to the senators, Kerry now wants to arm Syria's rebels—in
part, to block the local al Qaeda affiliates who have designs on
attacking the U.S. (Kerry's spokesperson denied that he now wants to
supply weapons, but did not dispute the overall tenor of the
conversation.)
Lorne Michaels, creator of “Saturday Night Live” says the show
typically makes fun of Republicans because they can handle it. Democrats
can’t, he told Vulture.
Vulture asked, “Are there any basic rules for what works and what doesn’t politically?”
“Republicans are easier for us than Democrats,” Michaels said.
“Democrats tend to take it personally; Republicans think it’s funny.”
PK'S NOTE: I include this because I am sick and tired of hearing about celebrity deaths being "tragic" and that it wasn't their fault because they had an addiction. They made choices in their lives that led to death instead of life. Addiction is something that is treatable like diabetes on a daily basis and THEY CHOSE NOT TO. They chose to throw away their talent and opportunities for a temporary high. How stupid and wasteful. I have no sympathy, it is selfish, and it makes me incredibly angry. He leaves behind three young kids without a father and a film he had seven days of work left now in a lurch.
By Thomas Lifson
He
may have won the Academy Award for Best Actor as Truman Capote, but in
life's drama, Philip Seymour Hoffman flubbed his role as father and
mate.
The
death of the extravagantly gifted actor from an apparent heroin
overdose boggles my mind. A man who was able to slip into the skin of
his characters and inhabit their souls, making their essence shine
brightly, was evidently unable to inhabit his own skin with any comfort
or ease. Something in his life drove him to seek oblivion in drugs and
alcohol starting when he graduated from NYU's drama school, as he publicly admitted.
Hoffman's performance
as Truman Capote that won him a Best Actor Oscar was one of the most
memorable screen roles I have ever seen. It burned with intensity and
verisimilitude, refusing to recede from my memory the way most movie
portrayals do. And his comic turn as a rich man's toady in The Big Lebowski was skin-crawlingly memorable.
A
man who could put aside his own personality and inject himself into the
souls of such figures apparently pays a price. It is almost as if he
abandons his psychological and spiritual moorings for his work, and then
cannot regain them,
Hoffman
fathered three children with a woman he never married, for some reason.
They are now left without a father. Although I cannot know what the
reality of this situation was, I can observe that he did not plunge
himself into the anchor role of husband
and father which might have served to keep him from obliterating his
life with the consciousness that there was something far more valuable
and important that the transitory sensations to be had from the tip of a
needle. For all the illusory authenticity he brought to his portrayal
of other characters, there was no authenticity to his occupation of the
role of father, protector, and husband in real life. Those responsibilities preclude the seeking of oblivion if they are taken with the seriousness they demand.
I
am very sad for him, his family, and especially for his children.
Genuine tragedy requires a fatal flaw, and that seems to be present
here. Hoffman paid with his life, and now those he left behind will pay
for the rest of theirs.
Another interesting one.
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