Obama’s Position on Infants Born Alive Mirrors Kermit Gosnell’s
by Kristi Burton Brown | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 4/21/13 4:15 PMThis past week, after the U.S. Senate failed to pass the bill on universal background checks for gun purchases, President Obama gave a speech in the Rose Garden. Reports have claimed that he was “angry,” that he “lashed out,” and that the loss was an “emotional blow” to the president. Indeed, President Obama has spent many hours for months campaigning for gun restrictions. And it seems that sensible people could reach a compromise to protect the innocent among us, while still preserving our constitutional rights.
Yet, in the midst of his anger or sorrow, the president resorted to accusations. He said:
But instead of supporting this compromise, the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill. They claimed that it would create some sort of ‘big brother’ gun registry, even though the bill did the opposite. This legislation, in fact, outlawed any registry. Plain and simple, right there in the text. But that didn’t matter.In all likelihood, President Obama truly cares to make a difference on this issue for the right reasons. But his accusations bring his own statements and his own much-loved abortion lobby into question. Shall we talk about willful lies? Let’s.
And unfortunately, this pattern of spreading untruths about this legislation served a purpose, because those lies upset an intense minority of gun owners, and that in turn intimidated a lot of senators. [Emphasis mine.]
In this video, Cecile Richards – president of Planned Parenthood and hardcore Obama campaigner – willfully lies about her organization providing mammograms:
Gov't obtains wide AP phone records in probe
— May. 13 7:50 PM EDT
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.
Benghazi, IRS Create Perfect Storm Threatening Obama's Credibility
What does it mean when a president's people can't get their stories straight?
Updated: May 13, 2013 | 2:01 p.m.
May 13, 2013 | 8:01 a.m.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
His people can’t get their stories straight.
Internal Revenue Service officials denied for months the targeting of conservative political groups for reviews of their tax exempt status. With investigators poised to expose the chilling operation, a high-ranking IRS official acknowledged it late last week and apologized for it.
The agency blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware. That appears to be untrue. The Associated Press reported Saturday that senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011, according to a draft of an inspector general's report.
Politicizing the IRS threatens the integrity of an agency entrusted with Americans' secrets and the taxes that fund government. It also fuels the paranoia of conspiracy theorists.
"This is outrageous," said Democratic consultant Chris Kofinis. "The administration and the president need to condem this and act immediately. This is not a right-left issue."
Several other Democratic allies of the White House expressed similiar sentiments while refusing to be named out of fear of retribution. Kofinis, who specializes in political communications, said the White House needs to explain itself. "Your first response can't be to say the IRS is an independent agency," a claim the White House has made, he said.
Later, at a White House news conference, Obama forcefully denounced the IRS actions as "outrageous" and said people will be held accountable.
On Benghazi, the president’s U.N. ambassador said five days after the Libya attack that the incident grew out of a street protest rather than a terrorist attack. Caught fudging the facts in the middle of a presidential campaign, a race in which Obama’s anti-terrorism record was a major selling point, the White House blamed Ambassador Susan Rice’s statement on “talking points” concocted by the CIA in virtual isolation.
Obama’s team stuck with that story until the truth was exposed amid a GOP congressional investigation. Emails leaked to news organizations last week show that both the White House and State Department were directly involved in scrubbing the CIA talking points of any mention of past threats and al-Qaida involvement. That is the exact opposite of what the Obama White House had claimed.
Inexplicably, White House spokesman Jay Carney refused late Friday to acknowledge the contradiction.
Even worse, Obama himself ignored his administration's obfuscations today, and instead called the debate over shifting explanations "a sideshow." At the news conference, he turned the tables on GOP critics and accused them of playing "political games."
Why does this matter? Because a president’s credibility matters. President Bush’s second term effectively ended when Americans grew tired of his administration’s spinning and dissembling over Iraq and Katrina. They stopped trusting him. They stopped listening to him. He no longer had the moral authority to lead.
It’s far too early in this perfect storm of controversy to condemn Obama to Bush’s fate, but he and his advisers face a credibility crisis. Obama missed a chance on Benghazi today to convince Americans that he is still worthy of their trust.
To do so, he may need to do more than to promise to bolster embassy security and to shut down the IRS targeting operation. He may need to forcefully condemn the half-truths and distortions disseminated under his name.
He may need to fire people who can’t get his story straight.
UPDATE: Original story was updated with Obama news conference.
Obama Tells Harvey Weinstein, Justin Timberlake to Blame Rush Limbaugh
Associated Press
In June 2012, Obama had predicted that being a lame duck would actually be a perk. He told donors:
"I believe that if we're successful in this election, when we're successful in this election, that the fever may break, because there's a tradition in the Republican Party of more common sense than that,...And if Republicans refuse to cooperate? Well, unlike the president, they do face reelection. Obama suggested he would crush them in the midterms. "If there are folks who are more interested in winning elections than they are thinking about the next generation then I want to make sure there are consequences to that."
My hope, my expectation, is that after the election, now that it turns out that the goal of beating Obama doesn't make much sense because I'm not running again, that we can start getting some cooperation again."
Obama left Weinstein's home for another DNC fundraiser at the home of Alexandra Stanton in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood, before a DCCC/DSCC event at the Waldorf Astoria, capping a busy day in which he addressed the dueling scandals about the IRS and Benghazi — and maybe even cried.
Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at ereeve@theatlantic.com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire. Elspeth Reeve
Fox in the Hen House
Iran to chair U.N. arms control forum
Iranian rockets / AP
Iran will preside over the United Nations arms control forum this month, despite the fact that it is under U.N. sanctions for illicit nuclear activities and routinely supplies arms to the terrorist organization Hezbollah in violation of international law.
The U.N.’s annual Conference on Disarmament, which Iran is slated to lead from May 27 to June 23, is the organization’s primary multilateral forum for negotiating arms control agreements.
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