Sunday, February 24, 2013

Bob Woodward


 

Obama’s sequester deal-changer

By Bob Woodward, Friday, February 22, 5:59 PM


My extensive reporting for my book “The Price of Politics” shows that the automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors — probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government.

Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved. Read the whole article here***
Mike Bates | February 22, 2013 | 19:12

Chicago hasn’t had a Republican mayor in over 80 years.  Democrats have controlled the Illinois governor’s mansion and both houses of the legislature for more than a decade, with Democrats ruling the Illinois House for 28 of the last 30 years.  No matter, Chicago violence is the fault of Republicans.  We learned that this morning on CNN Newsroom when anchor Carol Costello asked her “Talk Back” guests about Retired Lt. General Russel Honore’s suggestion to use National Guard troops to curb murders in Chicago.  Democratic strategist Robert Zimmerman astutely pinpointed the reason for Chicago’s carnage:
And let's be very clear about what's happening in Washington today and why it's undermining the city of Chicago, because there's a mindset now in our government, in Washington, from the Republican members of Congress, that sequestration is an acceptable way of doing business, that we can in fact engage in these massive irresponsible cuts that no one thinks is a logical approach to budgeting. 
And that undermines law enforcement in our cities; it undermines so many education opportunities for our younger people and it does in fact -- in fact create an impoverished class of our society that leads to abuse, leads to violence and leads to more Chicagos. 
That’s right.  It’s the GOP’s “mindset” that’s to blame.  Yet sequestration can’t be responsible for the 506 Chicago murders last year, when condemning Republicans for his own proposal was still a gleam in Barack Obama’s eye.
Anchor Costello allowed Zimmerman’s absurd charge to go by with nothing but a weak “I don't think you can leave Democrats out of that one.”  How’s that for setting the record straight for those low information voters CNN caters to?
No Republican need lend a hand in undermining the city of Chicago.  Its uninterrupted Democrat control is doing just that. 

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/#ixzz2LgJ1c1vU





Matt Vespa | February 22, 2013 | 17:42
Yesterday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s Now with Alex Wagner featured a discussion about the Keystone XL Pipeline, which is anathema to the environmental left, and which President Obama cynically delayed a decision on until after the 2012 election.  With the decision to approve or decline the project still looming for President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry -- who technically is the point person on approving the project -- Melinda Pierce of the Sierra Club was brought on the panel to discuss the pending doom we face with climate change, and disseminate the message that we can’t drill our way to energy independence.
To Wagner’s credit she did cite a piece from, of all things, Joe Nocera of the New York Times to give an alternative view to Pierce’s. Whereas Pierce responded by equating the approval of the pipeline to setting off a “carbon bomb”:


Matthew Balan | February 22, 2013 | 17:25
Bill Whitaker did his best to depict former San Diego Mayor Maureen O'Connor as a tragic figure on Friday's CBS This Morning, but glossed over her Democratic affiliation. Whitaker sympathetically asked O'Connor, "What's the worst of it for you?" The correspondent also spotlighted how the former mayor "brought in light rail, a convention center – helped transform San Diego from a sleepy navy town to the country's eighth largest city."

Anchor Norah O'Donnell introduced Whitaker's four and half minute-long report by labeling the politician a "beloved former mayor". Whitaker later followed suit by pointing out how "San Diego once loved her".


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