The White House threatened a San Francisco reporter for filming a crummy protest song at a fundraiser in California this past week.
Obama complimented the song but was surprised by the fundraiser protest. The administration threatened the reporter who recorded the protest song but later denied it.
Today the San Francisco Chronicle said the White House is lying. SFGate reported:
In a pants-on-fire moment, the White House press office today denied anyone there had issued threats to remove Carla Marinucci and possibly other Hearst reporters from the press pool covering the President in the Bay Area.
Chronicle editor Ward Bushee called the press office on its fib:
Sadly, we expected the White House to respond in this manner based on our experiences yesterday. It is not a truthful response. It follows a day of off-the-record exchanges with key people in the White House communications office who told us they would remove our reporter, then threatened retaliation to Chronicle and Hearst reporters if we reported on the ban, and then recanted to say our reporter might not be removed after all.
The Chronicle’s report is accurate.
If the White House has indeed decided not to ban our reporter, we would like an on-the-record notice that she will remain the San Francisco print pool reporter.
I’ve said before that I don’t think it’s right to vote for anyone based on the color of their skin, be it white or black or otherwise. We should care more about how a given candidate would lead, what policies they would implement (or roll back, as the case may be), then what color their skin is. Or what gender they are. Or how they look on television.
Sadly, that’s the kind of society we are. Obama won election not so much because of his policies but because of his marketing. He was a celebrity candidate who caught the eye of the electorate with his brilliant stagecraft and lofty speeches and they voted for him.
Most open, high-tech, accessible administration….(n)ever.
Yes, it’s true. The social media-darling-in-chief has banned a San Francisco Chronicle reporter for using her cell phone to capture video of left-wing protesters at the Bay Area Obama fundraiser earlier this week.
The White House press shop refuses to comment on the record about it — and, no surprise, other reporters have apparently been threatened for talking about the banishment.
SFChronicle’s Phil Bronstein reports:
The hip, transparent and social media-loving Obama administration is showing its analog roots. And maybe even some hypocrisy highlights.
White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news.
The Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci – who, like many contemporary reporters, has a phone with video capabilities on her at all times – pulled out a small video camera last week and shot some protesters interrupting an Obama fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel.
She was part of a “print pool” – a limited number of journalists at an event who represent their bigger hoard colleagues – which White House press officials still refer to quaintly as “pen and pad” reporting.
But that’s a pretty Flintstones concept of journalism for an administration that presents itself as the Jetsons.
Here’s the kicker:
So what’s up with the White House? We can’t say because neither Press Secretary Jay Carney nor anyone from his staff would speak on the record.
Other sources confirmed that Carla was vanquished, including Chronicle editor Ward Bushee, who said he was “informed that Carla was removed as a pool reporter.” Which shouldn’t be a secret in any case because it’s a fact that affects the newsgathering of our largest regional paper (and sfgate)and how local citizens get their information.
What’s worse: more than a few journalists familiar with this story are aware of some implied threats from the White House of additional and wider punishment if Carla’s spanking became public. Really? That’s a heavy hand usually reserved for places other than the land of the free.
Deficits are not the only thing that could mortgage America’s future, President Barack Obama told Democratic donors in New York on Thursday. He stressed it would be mortgaging the country’s future if government did not spend money on certain areas.“There’s more than one way to mortgage America’s future,” Obama said at The Town Hall in New York. “We mortgage that future if we don’t get a handle on our deficit and debt, but we also mortgage it if we’re not investing in those things that will assure the promise of the American Dream for the next generation.”
Obama, in the speech, broadly defined the government expenditures needed to ensure prosperity for the next generation that should not be sacrificed for deficit and debt reduction.
Wait a minute, I thought a mortgage was borrowing. Now not borrowing is mortgaging? And they wonder why we want to see his college transcripts.
In addition, when comparing the Republican budget proposal to his proposal, the President said this:
“It’s a vision of a small America, of a shrunken America, where those of us who are lucky do great and don’t have to give anything back, and we can pull up the ladder behind us,” Obama said of the GOP plan at an earlier DNC fundraiser that same day at the Waldorf Astoria in New York.
Of his plan, he said, “We imagine a big America where we’re investing in the same kind of science that invented the Internet.”
Previously: President Obama Finally Releases His Birth Certificate
The birther debate has been “bad for the Republican party,” the Obama administration says. So out of an abundance of concern for the welfare of the GOP, they’re naturally releasing the President’s long form birth certificate.
Washington (CNN) — The Obama administration is releasing President Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer announced Wednesday.
Obama will discuss the decision to release the certificate Wednesday morning, the White House announced.
“This whole birther debate has been really bad for the Republican Party,” Pfeiffer said. But the discussion is “crowding out the debate” on more important issues and is a distraction, he said.
The so-called “birther” debate is “good politics” but “bad for the country,” Pfeiffer added.
Here’s the PDF of the document released by the White House:
Does this settle the debate, or do the conspiracy mongers find some new way to expand the conspiracy? My guess is the latter.
Regardless, I guess the Obama administration felt they had milked all the political advantage they could out of refusing to release the birth certificate.
sayanythingblog.com
Also:
Obama Calls Trump a “Carnival Barker”
In his birth certificate speech this morning Barack Obama called Donald Trump a “carnival barker.” It must be more of that new tone we were promised.
Here’s a partial transcript:
I’ve provided additional information today about the site of my birth. “Yes, I was in fact born in HI on Aug. 4, 1961.” Over the past 2 1/2 years I have watched with puzzlement this controversy. Normally I wouldn’t comment on this. But the prominent news story was about my birth certificate, not the budget. I want to make a larger point. We have enormous issues we are facing. Which will generate huge and fierce debates. We are not going to be able to come together in a bipartisan fashion if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers. I have every confidence that the US will come out on top.
Just wondering… So why did you spend millions to hide this document Mr. President?
I maintain that Obama was born in the United States, but this is why I supported Arizona’s “birther law.” Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer vetoed that law and is now saying she finds birtherism to be “destructive” and a distraction.
I think it would be less so if the states had laws requiring the candidates to prove their constitutional eligibility, thus nipping these conspiracy theories in the bud before they get to this point.
Still, in the USA TODAY poll, only 38% of Americans say Obama definitely was born in the USA, and 18% say he probably was. Fifteen percent say he probably was born in another country, and 9% say he definitely was born elsewhere.
The impulse here is to blame the conspiracy mongers keeping this thing alive, but how much culpability does Obama have in all this? Releasing the long-form birth certificate (or whatever it is the birthers want) would be a simple enough move. By not releasing it, by essentially playing coy on the whole thing, they keep wind in the sails of the USS Conspiracy Theory.
That’s politically convenient, I think, in that it allows Obama to cast himself as a victim of silly nut jobs. But we should also be sure to give Obama his due for leading these people on.
(My Wind) Obama railed against the oil companies again today. Obama said the US government gave $4 billion in subsidies to US oil companies. The Hill reported:
President Obama lashed out at oil companies — and the tax breaks they get from the government — for a second consecutive day on Thursday and again in Saturday’s address.
“Four billion dollars of your money are going to these companies at a time when they’re making record profits and you’re paying near record prices at the pump,” the president said at a Nevada town hall. “It has to stop.”
While Obama railed against US companies he forgot to mention the billions his administration has approved for foreign energy companies.
White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked today why President Obama did not give a statement on Easter. He laughed it off. Via Real Clear Politics:
Barack Obama released statements for the Muslims holidays of Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, the Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha last year. Just last month he released a statement for the Persian Nowruz holiday.
Carney also scoffed at media reports calling out the White House for not releasing a statement commemorating Easter on Sunday, explaining Obama and his family attended church services in Washington.
“The president went to church yesterday, it was well-covered. I’m not sure if we put out a statement or not. He obviously personally celebrated Easter with his family,” he said.
When a reporter asked how Carney could not know whether the White House issued a statement, Carney shot back, “I’m glad you are asking me these key important questions, guys.
“As a devoted Christian, he believes it is a very important holiday for him personally, his family and people all around the country,” he added.
Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. President Obama’s perpetual campaign cash-o-matic machine kicks into high gear again this week as the celebrity-in-chief heads to Hollywood for several high-priced fundraisers. But while the Democrats’ 2012 re-election team stuffs its hands into every liberal deep pocket in sight, questions about the Obama 2008 campaign finance operation still fester.
Last week, the laggard watchdogs at the Federal Election Commission announced an audit of the Obama 2008 campaign committee — which raised a record-setting $750 million. White House flacks are downplaying the probe as a “routine review.”
But there’s nothing routine about the nearly $3 million Obama has spent on legal expenses to address federal campaign finance irregularities and inquiries. Roll Call reports that Obama’s campaign legal fees have exceeded all other House and presidential campaign committees, including members of Congress under ethics investigations.
There’s nothing routine about the whopping $6 million that Team Obama has refunded to individual donors since Obama took office.
And there’s nothing routine about the 26 warning letters to Obama for America totaling “more than 1,500 pages of questions and data that outlined compliance concerns — including the longest one ever sent to a presidential candidate,” according to Roll Call.
Among the Obama 2008 campaign committee’s shadiest transactions that have gone unpunished:
– Foreign funny money. Federal election law bans foreign nationals from contributing to American candidates. But during 2008, the Obama campaign was forced to return an illegal foreign donation worth $31,100 made by two brothers in the Gaza Strip, and even mainstream news outlets reported that candidate Obama’s money-handlers had routinely failed to verify citizenship by checking donors’ passports. As the Associated Press reported at the time: “One donor, Tom Sanderson of Canada, made clear his $500 contribution came from a foreign source. He included a note that said, ‘I am not an American citizen!’ Obama’s campaign took the money anyway…”
Another illegal foreign donor, Australian Richard Watters, contributed $1,000, “entering a fake U.S. passport number — a random jumble of numbers and letters” onto the Obama donation website. “He said he also checked a box stating that he was an American living overseas, ‘because I could see it wasn’t going anywhere if I didn’t do that.’”
Obama raked in at least $2 million in overseas donations.
– Online donor credit-card fraud. Weeks before the 2008 presidential election, investigative journalist Ken Timmerman blew the whistle on rampant phony straw contributors slipping through the Obama donation site. Just one example: “Mr. Good Will” from Austin, Texas. Mr. Good Will listed his employer as “Loving” and his profession as “You.” Timmerman’s analysis of 1.4 million individual donations to the Obama campaign discovered “1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, most of them for $25. In total, Mr. Good Will gave $17,375. Following this and subsequent FEC requests, campaign records show that 330 contributions from Mr. Good Will were credited back to a credit card. But the most recent report, filed on Sept. 20, showed a net cumulative balance of $8,950 — still well over the $4,600 limit.”
– Social justice funny money. In 2008, the Obama campaign wrote checks totaling more than $800,000 to a nonprofit offshoot of ACORN called Citizens Services Inc. The campaign claimed the money went to nonpartisan get-out-the-vote services. But receipts showed the funds paid for polling, advance work and event staging supplied by a nonprofit that supposedly does simple canvassing work on behalf of low-income people. The FEC allowed Obama to wave his magic wand and amend the records to change political expenses into non-political ones. As a Republican National Committee staffer commented at the time: “For a candidate who claims to be practicing ‘new’ politics, his FEC reports look an awful lot like the ‘old-style’ Chicago politics of yesterday.”
On a related front, ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief filed announced plans to file an FEC complaint last year over illegal coordination between ACORN and the Obama campaign. MonCrief publicly released Obama donor lists supplied to ACORN affiliate Project Vote, which were allegedly used to target maxed-out presidential donors. The scheme involved converting the expenditures by Project Vote, ACORN and ACORN-affiliated entities to illegal, excessive corporate contributions to the Obama presidential campaign, in violation of federal law.
Nothing to see here, move along? The only “routine” business as usual being conducted here is Chicago-style self-exemption business as usual: Rules are for fools. Let the crooked cash flow in.
All the president’s funny money by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate Copyright 2011
Despite claims to the contrary, the taxpayers are still very much the owners of General Motors, and the stock is becoming a bit of a hot potato in the hands of the Obama administration. On one hand, they don’t want to still be holding GM’s stock during the 2012 election year when it could become a campaign issue. But, if they sell it this year it mean losing billions.
At Monday’s price, and taking into account shares sold during the IPO, taxpayers would lose more than $11 billion on the rescue if the government dumped the rest of its stake now.
Government officials are willing to take the loss because the Obama administration would like to sever its last ties to the auto maker, the people familiar with the matter said. A summer sale makes it more likely Treasury could sell all of its stake in GM by year’s end, avoiding a potentially controversial sale in the 2012 presidential election year.
Keep in mind that the only reason why we bailed GM out to begin with was to keep the company from dispensing with the United Auto Workers’ extravagant labor contracts. If GM had gone into bankruptcy, those contracts could have been dispensed and entirely re-negotiated.
As it was, the taxpayers bought GM and guided it through extra-special bankruptcy during which President Obama’s friends at the UAW got extra-special treatment.
President Obama did sit-down interviews with four Texas TV stations at the White House yesterday. Beforehand, Mike Allen at Politico explained why these kinds of interviews are conducted:
The White House sees these interviews as a way to cut through Beltway chatter and give the president an opportunity to talk to Americans about his vision for the country, in a venue that’s familiar to them. Obama’s communicators choose stations from different regions of the country, with a particular emphasis on stations that have content-sharing relationships with other stations in the region. For example, today’s interview with WFAA in Dallas will also be seen by viewers in Austin, San Antonio and Houston. With the reporters invited to come see the president, the interview becomes more of an “event” and is heavily promoted as a White House interview.
In other words, it’s a good way to be seen by a lot of people in a certain region without using the national press but instead some local anchor or reporter who’s just going to be happy to have the opportunity, and as such, less likely to rock the boat and conduct a tougher interview.
Sometimes though it doesn’t work out that way, as was the case with a WFAA reporter:
After the interview, Obama pointed out that he doesn’t like an interviewer challenging his comments.
“Let me finish my answers the next time we do an interview, all right?” he said.
Of course, there’s never enough time to ask all the questions, but on one that Texas Republicans keep bringing up — that the president is somehow targeting Texas — he said clearly, he is not.
The exchange is towards the end of this short video:
If Obama heads into the 2012 campaign thinking that the media is going to wag their tails and roll over so their bellies can be scratched with Hope & Change like they did in 2008, he’s… correct to some degree. But a portion of the press will refuse to blindly swallow the Kool Aid this time around, and they are the reason we’ll probably see many more expressions of dissatisfaction like this (or worse) in the coming months. Especially if those reporters are from Texas.
King Barack believes he is above the law. The radical far left president today issued a signing statement today indicating he won’t abide by a provision in the federal budget that just passed the House. The Chicago politician will do what he wants with his czars despite the law. Thank you very much.
Of course, Obama said he would never do this during the 2008 campaign while he was bashing Bush. Via Breitbart:
In a statement issued Friday night, President Obama took issue with some provisions in the budget bill – and in one case simply says he will not abide by it.
Last week the White House and congressional Democrats and Republicans were involved in intense negotiations over not only the size of the budget for the remainder of the FY2011 budget, and spending cuts within that budget, but also several GOP “riders,” or policy provisions attached to the bill.
One rider – Section 2262 — de-funds certain White House adviser positions – or “czars.” The president in his signing statement declares that he will not abide by it.
“The President has well-established authority to supervise and oversee the executive branch, and to obtain advice in furtherance of this supervisory authority,” he wrote. “The President also has the prerogative to obtain advice that will assist him in carrying out his constitutional responsibilities, and do so not only from executive branch officials and employees outside the White House, but also from advisers within it. Legislative efforts that significantly impede the President’s ability to exercise his supervisory and coordinating authorities or to obtain the views of the appropriate senior advisers violate the separation of powers by undermining the President’s ability to exercise his constitutional responsibilities and take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Therefore, the president wrote, “the executive branch will construe section 2262 not to abrogate these Presidential prerogatives.”
Well, you’re sure not going to see this replayed by the state-run media. In February 2009 President Obama told a crowd of willing dupes that he was going to cut the deficit in half. It was important.
Fast forward two and a half years. Obama tripled the deficit his first year and it’s only getting worse…
The New York Times released a rare and honest appraisal of of Barack Obama’s failed economic policies yesterday. Economix Blog reported:
At a time when the economy should be rebounding the latest GDP number for the first quarter of 2010 shows thatthe Obama economic policies have failed.
When 2011 began, Macroeconomic Advisers, a forecasting company, expected that America’s economic output would shape up to rise at a 4.1 percent annual rate in the first quarter, the highest pace in over a year.
But economic reports coming in over the last few months have been increasingly disappointing.
But, that wasn’t posted long. The water carriers for the Obama regime quickly scrubbed that “Obama failed” line from their article. Here’s the latest update:
They erased the whole first paragraph and replaced it with, “And the year started out so very hopeful.” How that ever slipped by the editors in the first place, we will never know.
Or, “end the Bush-era tax cuts on the wealth” in the parlance of the liberal media. Because eliminating tax cuts that have been with us for nearly a decade now isn’t a tax hike.
Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama will call Wednesday for an end to the Bush-era tax cuts for Americans making over $250,000 annually, according to a senior administration official.
This is actually a pretty handy maneuver by the liberals. Democrats have been losing the rhetorical battle on spending, so switching tacts and forcing Republicans to defend “tax cuts for the rich” takes the focus away from their absurd defense of federal funding for cowboy poetry and blossom festivals and puts it on squarely on class war.
Where they are a lot more comfortable.
Will this work? It depends on whether or not Republicans can convince the public that the problem is spending, not revenue, and that more money taken out of the economy and put into government hurts us all.
This year, Congress will spend $3.7 trillion dollars. That turns out to be about $10 billion per day. Can we prey upon the rich to cough up the money? According to IRS statistics, roughly 2 percent of U.S. households have an income of $250,000 and above. By the way, $250,000 per year hardly qualifies one as being rich. It’s not even yacht and Learjet money. All told, households earning $250,000 and above account for 25 percent, or $1.97 trillion, of the nearly $8 trillion of total household income. If Congress imposed a 100 percent tax, taking all earnings above $250,000 per year, it would yield the princely sum of $1.4 trillion. That would keep the government running for 141 days, but there’s a problem because there are 224 more days left in the year.
He’s not joining his state to the multi-state legal challenge to Obamacare, and he’s only questioning the legality of the individual insurance mandate arguing that the rest of the law should stay on the books, but he is saying that the individual mandate was federal overreach and ought to be overturned.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Missouri’s Democratic attorney general broke with his party on Monday and urged a federal judge to invalidate the central provision of the new health care law. …
Mr. Koster’s action followed months of pressure from state Republicans that he join attorneys general from other states who are challenging the constitutionality of the law.
Rather than join the litigation, however, Mr. Koster chose to file a “friend of the court” brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, which is reviewing one of five challenges to the act that have moved into the midlevel appellate courts. …
Though Mr. Koster has been slow to weigh in, he did not mince words, arguing in the court brief that Congress had overstepped its authority by mandating that individuals buy health insurance, which he called “a substantial blow to federalism and personal freedom.”
“If Congress can force activity under the Commerce Clause, then it could force individuals to receive vaccinations or annual checkups, undergo mammogram or prostate exams or maintain a specific body mass,” he wrote.
He asked that the mandate be stripped from the law, and that the rest of it be allowed to remain in effect.
Koster was a Republican until 2007, when he switched to Democrat in advance of his 2008 run to become AG with Obama at the top of the ticket. He, obviously, won that race but is now splitting with his party on Obamacare.
And it’s easy to see why. Last year a ballot referendum to nullify Obamacare passed in the state by a 3 – 1 margin. Republicans made major gains in the state in the 2010 election. With Koster facing re-election in 2012, the party-switcher seems to want to be on the other side of Obamacare.
Which shows just how powerful opposition to Obamacare is even now, a year and one election cycle hence.
Because, of course, if you can’t afford to fill up your car with gas surely you can afford a new expensive green car. It’s perfect logic… If you’re an out of touch liberal.
Doug Powers says: "He’s off on that 8 mpg SUV kick again — it’s been a talking point for a while now. Does Obama think everybody drives a presidential limo?"
A regular Hawaii golfing buddy and Punahou School friend of President Barack Obama was among four people arrested during a prostitution sting operation in Kakaako by Honolulu police Monday night.
Waialua resident Robert Richard "Bobby" Titcomb, 49, was arrested at South and Pohukaina streets at 9:40 p.m. Monday.
Titcomb was charged with solicitation of prostitution and released after posting $500 bail at 11 p.m. The offense is a petty misdemeanor that carries a $500 fine. People convicted may also face probation, community sevice or up to 30 days in jail.
Titcomb is described as a "commercial fisherman and airline employee" in an article profiling Obama that appeared in the spring 2007 edition of the Punahou Bulletin, the private school's quarterly alumni magazine.
Titcomb was one of four men who were arrested in a “reverse sting," targeting prostitution customers. HPD declined to give specifics about the location or other details about the operation.
The president last played golf with Titcomb during the first family’s most recent holiday vacation over Christmas and New Year’s. On Dec. 30, the president and his family spent the day at Titcomb's beachfront home in Waialua, where they ate barbecue, played volleyball and hung out on the beach.
Titcomb attended Punahou a year behind Obama but did not graduate from the school. Obama graduated in 1979.
staradvertiser.com
This photo taken in December 2009 shows President Barack Obama, right, with Bobby Titcomb, on the 18th green as they play golf at Mid Pacific Country Club in Kailua.
Party Time! As a historic shutdown looms, Obama skipped town today to attend a gala in New York City.
resident Barack Obama, right, shakes hands with filmmaker Spike Lee, left, at the National Action Network’s Keepers of Dream Awards Gala in New York, Wednesday, April 6, 2011. (AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Obama told the audience at the gala tonight, “I’m not out of touch… I remember what it was like to pump gas.”
To be fair… He did take three minutes to call Speaker Boehner today about a deal.
Attorney General Eric Holder today will announce that self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be tried in a military commission, the CBS News Investigative Unit has learned. A source says the commission will be held at the Guantanamo Bay prison.
Holder is expected to announce the decision in a news conference today at 2 p.m.
Trying Mohammed in a civilian court and closing the Guantanamo prison were once some of the Obama administration’s top priorities, but political realities have hamstrung both goals.
In November 2009, Holder announced that Mohammed and four other alleged Sept. 11 plotters would be tried in New York City, but he scrapped that plan in the wake of public consternation. Republicans and some others in Washington said the decision compromised national security, while a CBS News poll at the time showed that most Americans thought such suspects should be tried in a closed military court.
gatewaypundit.rightnetwork.com
More:
Obama administration retreats (again) on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed civilian trial; Holder blames Congress
Buzz out of Washington this morning is that the Obama administration has signaled it will end efforts to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian trial and instead will use the Gitmo military tribunal system pursued by, yes, George W. Bush.
AG Eric Holder is reportedly holding a 2pm Eastern press conference.
Attorney General Eric Holder today will announce that self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be tried in a military commission, CBS News has learned. A source says the commission will be held at the Guantanamo Bay prison.
Trying Mohammed in a civilian court and closing the Guantanamo prison were once some of the Obama administration’s top priorities, but political realities have hamstrung both goals.
Holder previously recommended that Mohammed and four other alleged Sept. 11 plotters be tried in New York City, but he scrapped that plan in the wake of public consternation.
Not just “political realities.”
Homeland security realities.
Public safety realities.
Intelligence realities.
Wartime realities.
Reality realities.
Reality bites. Sanity wins. For now.
Flashback to November 2009, when Obama/AG Holder embarked on their futile mission to treat Mohammed like your common domestic criminal.
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey said today that it is highly likely that terrorists will attack New York City as a consequence of the Obama administration’s decision to send five alleged Sept. 11 plotters there for trial in federal court.
During a question and answer period following a speech to a conservative legal group, Mukasey was asked about the possibility that there might be an escape by one or more prisoners.
“The [Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan] is a very secure place….Is it secure? Of course, it’s secure. They’re not going to escape,” Mukasey told a conference of the Federalist Society. “The question is not whether they’re going to escape. The question is whether, not only that particular facility, but the city [at] large, will then become the focus for mischief in the form of murder by adherents of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed–whether this raises the odds that it will. I would suggest to you that it raises them very high.”
Mukasey said the men now to be tried in New York should have been left before military commission proceedings at Guantanamo that were already in progress.
“The plan seems to be to abandon the view that we’re in a war,” Mukasey said. “I can’t see anything good coming out of this. I certainly can’t see anything good coming out of it very quickly. And it think it would have been far preferable to try these case in the venue that Congress created for trying and where they were about to be tried.”
The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday. Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but “would explain what happened and why they did it.”
The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier this month that Ali and four other men accused of murdering nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. will face a civilian federal trial just blocks from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center. Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, is a nephew of professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Mohammed, Ali and the others will explain “their assessment of American foreign policy,” Fenstermaker said.
“Their assessment is negative,” he said.
Chalk up another “Emily ‘Never Mind’ Litella” Moment for feckless Team Obama:
I’ve written extensively over the years on the perils of civilian trials for terrorists. See here and here and here for a refresher course in the Ally McBeal approach to terror.
2:10pm Eastern AG Holder press conference. He says he embarked on shutting down Gitmo and forcing civilian trials with an “open mind.”
Pretends to speak for the 9/11 families — who raised their voices most loudly against KSM trial in New York City.
Says the Bush-era military tribunals will be fair and just, after all…
Whines about congressional restrictions based on national security/public safety concerns.
Still intends to close Gitmo.
Whines about critics trying to “score political points.”
Whines about “needless” debate.
Peppered with questions about his contradictory views on military tribunals and his condescension towards Americans who criticized civilian trial plans, a testy Holder cuts and runs.
Will only high-powered, politically connected corporations and Big Labor groups be spared? Where’s the transparency in how these decisions are being made?
To the first question, all signs have pointed to yes in the ensuing seven months.
To the second question, as usual, transparency is AWOL.
On Friday night, HHS quietly released another round of waiver information — picked up by The Hill. 128 new lucky winners will join 1,000 others in being exempted from the onerous, costly, private insurance-killing mandates that the rest of America is forced to follow:
The number of waivers the Obama administration has awarded for a provision of the year-old healthcare reform law grew by 128 in March.
With the new waivers, that means 1,168 businesses, insurers, unions and other organizations have received one-year exemptions from a healthcare reform provision requiring at least $750,000 in annual benefits.
The administration says the temporary waivers are granted to help stabilize the insurance market until a fuller package of reforms takes effect in 2014, but the growing number of waivers have exposed the White House to heavy criticism from Republican opponents of the law.
“The fact that over 1,000 waivers have been granted is a tacit admission that the healthcare law is fundamentally flawed,” said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) last month. Upton is one of three House committee chairmen who has used new oversight powers to investigate the annual limit waivers.
The buried news: HHS is already plotting more waivers for 2012-2013…
HHS must still bridge the gap until 2014, when the mini-med plans will supposedly be phased out because consumers will be able to shop for affordable and quality coverage on new state-run insurance exchanges. HHS said it is now examining waivers options for 2012 and 2013.
The new numbers were posted on an HHS website Friday night without an announcement from the department. The 128 waivers added in March track closely to the 126 HHS awarded in February.
Let the pre-election favor-trading for future waivers begin.
With Obama already launching his 2012 bid, Politico’s Roger Simon says he and his fellow reporters aren’t going to get fooled again. This time, they won’t get so caught up in the hopey changey love fest and will, instead, try to put substance over form.
This, of course, right after Simon says that he and his fellow reporters “stipulate that Obama is the greatest orator of modern times.”
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: So is the press starting to sour on the stalemate in Libya?
Joining us now here in Washington, Roger Simon, chief political columnist for Politico; Dana Milbank, columnist for “The Washington Post,” and in San Francisco, Debra Saunders, a columnist for “The San Francisco Chronicle.”
Roger Simon, are the journalists and the anchors we just saw now aggressively challenging and acting openly skeptical about the Obama policy in Libya?
ROGER SIMON, CHIEF POLITICAL COLUMNIST, POLITICO: Yes, and that’s a good thing. We’re supposed to be openly skeptical.
The bloom isn’t entirely off the rose between Obama and the press, but reporters are starting to concentrate more than ever on what he says rather than how he says it. We will stipulate that he’s the greatest orator of modern times, but now we’re looking beyond that in every speech for what he’s actually telling us.
You just can’t win with these people, but I guess it’s nice that they’re at least going to try and act objective this time.
