++Said President Obama in a long-ranging press conference. The Torture report's summary has been declassified and gone to the Senate intelligence committee, which will decide when to release to the public. The report however doesn't not use the word torture for the abuse uncovered in the four year review of the CIA's program of torture and rendition.
++The State Department has been crafting talking points to explain the US's actions for the audience overseas.
++Meanwhile the report will have a Republican rebuttal and a CIA response. No one knows as yet how much of the report will be redacted.
++The pro-torture crowd is already lining up the defense of the CIA and blame the report on the Democrats, who apparently didn't torture anyone.
++Lost in the flap is that under the Torture Convention these acts should be prosecuted under the law as is obligatory under the conditions of the treaty. Eric Holder had investigated these cases and opted not to prosecute.
++The issue will be spun by the torture crowd such as the Washington Post's Marc Theissen who is a torture enthusiast. This should not come as a surprise because a plurality in any culture favors torture.
++President Obama also defended John Brenner for calling for the Inspector General Report that concluded that indeed the CIA spied on Democratic Senators. Senator Mark Udall demanded that Brenner be fired
++In other news, the Senate went home yesterday and the House will meet again tonight to vote on an extreme right border bill supported by Michelle Bachmann and Steven King, which would reverse the Dream Act making those 550,000 Latino kids vulnerable to deportation, modify the 2008 law that forbids the deportation of minors without due process, and would only provide a couple of a million for the border crisis itself. The House is now saying that the Senate should come back from recess to act on their bill, which is going nowhere. The whole point was to make a statement against President Obama and do nothing constructive about the crisis.
++As a warm-up to the Bachmann-King act,Michelle Bachmann charged the Obama administration with designing medical experiments to be conducted on the kids. Steve King said they were all potential rapists. I guess they were't old enough to get calves as big as cantaloupes from smuggling drugs.
++In his press conference, President Obama said that funds to deal with the border crisis are running out and he would have to make decisions on immigration himself. He hinted that he would during the congressional recess.
Showing posts with label President Obama's press conference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label President Obama's press conference. Show all posts
Friday, August 1, 2014
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Obama's Presser
++President Obama es mas macho que John Boehner. The President has megatons more patience than I ever would as he spent over an hour explaining the importance of default and addressing Republicans who believe it isn't a big deal. And if it isn't a big deal than why do Republicans believe they can extract massive concessions from the Democrats.
++The problem with President Obama is he is too rational. He walked through the history of the budget battle, including John Boehner's dare the Senate pass a budget--which it did. Then, according to the President, the House refused 19 times to appoint members to meet with the Senate in conference. President Obama was even tougher than before about not negotiating. He called again for Boehner to just bring the bill to the floor and let every member get their vote recorded individually. He again called for a clean debt ceiling vote and talked about the history of those votes dating back to Reagan's day.
++He explained why he might be tempted by the individual bills passed by the House and explained that these were only the result of the media showing a problem, which then embarrassed Republicans. And he said it wasn't a way to run a railroad.
++He disappointed me by explaining why he was not going to invoke the 14th Amendment despite its possible legality because it would essentially mean that the United States had defaulted because the litigation would take years and cast doubt on the Treasuries. He also dismissed the trillion dollar coin idea. He answered one question from a British reporter about paying bond-holders first by saying that Jack Lew would be giving a presentation to the Senate on Thursday addressing the details of different options Treasury has. He also said that Democrats should not expect any further tricks in the Treasury bag because Jack Lew will have exhausted them by the date of the debt ceiling.
++As sort of a concession, he said the GOP can attached what subjects they want the President to address in budget negotiations if they did not believe him. But he was not going to make unilateral concessions just to have a CR. This sort of suggested a form Boehner might try.
++The President took more questions than I have seen him do so in previous press conferences. He ignored Jon Karl, who at the end stood shouting "Whether the President took any responsibility for the shutdown?" This was dutifully recorded by ABC but the President had already left the room and probably didn't hear him.
++Overall, I thought the President did a great job and didn't cave. Earlier that morning he called John Boehner and told him basically the same thing. John Boehner told his Caucus that the Democrats were trying to destroy the Republicans and that they should hold tight. A few of those who said they favored a clean CR have backed down.
++In a new poll,72% of Americans believe that the shutdown is hurting the country and 50% believe it is "severely hurting the country". Only 12% believe it isn't.
++Weirdly, the Catholic Bishops Conference chose today to come out and ask the House not to end the shutdown until contraceptive coverage is banned under Obamacare. Shutdown the government and default on the debt because people use contraceptives.
++Meanwhile church groups, including Catholics,had 40 different rallies around the country demanding Congress pass an Immigration Law that had a path to citizenship.
++The Supreme Court looks like it will eliminate limits on individual campaign contributions. President Obama criticized this at his press conference,alerting the press that the reason we haven't had a budget agreement is that billionaires and millionaires have funded various special interest groups who threaten members or bankrolled their campaigns.
++At this hour, things don't look good for a resolution on either a CR or a Debt Ceiling.
++The problem with President Obama is he is too rational. He walked through the history of the budget battle, including John Boehner's dare the Senate pass a budget--which it did. Then, according to the President, the House refused 19 times to appoint members to meet with the Senate in conference. President Obama was even tougher than before about not negotiating. He called again for Boehner to just bring the bill to the floor and let every member get their vote recorded individually. He again called for a clean debt ceiling vote and talked about the history of those votes dating back to Reagan's day.
++He explained why he might be tempted by the individual bills passed by the House and explained that these were only the result of the media showing a problem, which then embarrassed Republicans. And he said it wasn't a way to run a railroad.
++He disappointed me by explaining why he was not going to invoke the 14th Amendment despite its possible legality because it would essentially mean that the United States had defaulted because the litigation would take years and cast doubt on the Treasuries. He also dismissed the trillion dollar coin idea. He answered one question from a British reporter about paying bond-holders first by saying that Jack Lew would be giving a presentation to the Senate on Thursday addressing the details of different options Treasury has. He also said that Democrats should not expect any further tricks in the Treasury bag because Jack Lew will have exhausted them by the date of the debt ceiling.
++As sort of a concession, he said the GOP can attached what subjects they want the President to address in budget negotiations if they did not believe him. But he was not going to make unilateral concessions just to have a CR. This sort of suggested a form Boehner might try.
++The President took more questions than I have seen him do so in previous press conferences. He ignored Jon Karl, who at the end stood shouting "Whether the President took any responsibility for the shutdown?" This was dutifully recorded by ABC but the President had already left the room and probably didn't hear him.
++Overall, I thought the President did a great job and didn't cave. Earlier that morning he called John Boehner and told him basically the same thing. John Boehner told his Caucus that the Democrats were trying to destroy the Republicans and that they should hold tight. A few of those who said they favored a clean CR have backed down.
++In a new poll,72% of Americans believe that the shutdown is hurting the country and 50% believe it is "severely hurting the country". Only 12% believe it isn't.
++Weirdly, the Catholic Bishops Conference chose today to come out and ask the House not to end the shutdown until contraceptive coverage is banned under Obamacare. Shutdown the government and default on the debt because people use contraceptives.
++Meanwhile church groups, including Catholics,had 40 different rallies around the country demanding Congress pass an Immigration Law that had a path to citizenship.
++The Supreme Court looks like it will eliminate limits on individual campaign contributions. President Obama criticized this at his press conference,alerting the press that the reason we haven't had a budget agreement is that billionaires and millionaires have funded various special interest groups who threaten members or bankrolled their campaigns.
++At this hour, things don't look good for a resolution on either a CR or a Debt Ceiling.
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