‘RAISING DEBT CEILING DOES NOT INCREASE OUR DEBT’ -OBAMA

End Of Days News

‘RAISING DEBT CEILING DOES NOT INCREASE OUR DEBT’ -OBAMA

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ECONOMIC ALERT: Raising the debt ceiling doesn’t increase the nation’s debt, Pres. Obama declared in a speech today. In a speech at the Business Roundtable headquarters in Washington, D.C., Obama dismissed concerns about raising the debt ceiling by noting that it’d … Continue reading →

Obama to use State of the Union to make case against spending cuts

End Of Days News

President Obama will use his State of the Union speech Tuesday to turn public opinion against automatic spending cuts and argue that some of the money to replace the cuts should instead come from higher taxes.

He will use the prime-time TV address to argue the economy would be damaged if $85 billion in automatic spending cuts were to go ahead on schedule on March 1, and will seek to set up Republicans to take the blame if they do.

Obama will spend a significant portion of his address talking about jobs and the economy, according to White House aides, who say the president will strike a similar tone as he has in recent days in calling for a “balanced” package of spending cuts and tax hikes to replace the sequester.

Senate Democrats aim to introduce a sequester replacement bill by Thursday that will include tax hikes and spending cuts. Republicans in Congress say they are willing to replace the sequester, but only with new spending cuts.

The State of the Union address is also expected to highlight Obama’s second-term shift on the deficit.

From 2010 to 2012, the president consistently argued for new spending to spur on the economy, but also called for accompanying spending cuts and tax hikes to rein in the deficit.

But in his radio address on Saturday, Obama emphasized that the White House and Congress already have “cut our deficit by more than $2.5 trillion” through spending cuts and higher tax rates imposed on households with annual incomes above $450,000.

“That’s more than halfway towards the $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists and elected officials from both parties say we need to stabilize our debt,” Obama said Saturday.

The comments signaled the president’s intention to take a hard line against Republican calls to trim entitlements.

A Congressional Budget Office report issued last week found the budget deficit will drop below $1 trillion this year to $845 billion, before falling further by 2015 to $430 billion.

In a more ominous sign, the same CBO report found an aging population and soaring healthcare costs would lead to an explosion in entitlement spending in later years, with budget deficits approaching $1 trillion again by 2023.

While Obama has used the bully pulpit to pressure the GOP and win fights over taxes and spending, Republicans believe they’re in a stronger position this time around.

In fights over the payroll tax cut in 2011 and the Bush tax rates in 2012, the president positioned himself as an advocate for lower taxes on the middle class; if no action was taken, it would have resulted in a tax hike for most households.

In the new battle, a move not to act will result in spending cuts, something Republicans argue that voters want to see.

The GOP is also setting up a blame-game fight by arguing it was Obama who pushed for the sequester as part of the 2011 deal to raise the debt ceiling. They are using the Twitter hashtag “#Obamaquester” to emphasize the point.

The White House argued that the 2011 debt-ceiling deal should include across-the-board spending cuts that would be triggered if Congress did not approve a broad deficit-reduction package to keep the country from defaulting on its debts. The cuts were picked so that they would be painful to both parties, and the final package was approved by bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has been tapped to give the Republican response to Obama’s Tuesday address. Aides on Monday would not say definitively if he will respond to Obama’s point on the sequester.

The president will couple his remarks on Tuesday night with a barnstorming tour set to begin on Wednesday, when he will travel to North Carolina to deliver a speech largely focused on the economy. Obama will also make another stop in Atlanta on Thursday for a second speech.

The messaging tack is similar to ones employed by the White House in previous fights, when Obama has taken his case directly to the public and sought to put the blame on Congress for stalled legislation.

“Certainly this is the best opportunity for him to sharpen the issue and explain to the American people the stakes,” Democratic strategist Doug Thornell said of the State of the Union address.

“There’s not going to be another opportunity with this size of an audience.”

Thornell said the messaging on the budget battles has worked well for the White House, adding, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Republicans point out they approved a sequester replacement bill during the last Congress. Members of the GOP, including Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), insist that it would be better if the sequester took place than it would be to introduce more tax hikes to replace it.

They also accuse the White House of not putting forward proposals that would eliminate the sequester.

White House press secretary Jay Carney on Monday called those accusations “wholly false.” He argued at his press briefing on Monday that Obama put forward alternatives to the sequester in negotiations with Boehner over the “fiscal cliff.”

In remarks Obama will likely echo on Tuesday, Carney said Congress should work toward “a broader budget agreement that eliminates the sequester entirely and reduces our deficit further by passing a short-term delay in the sequester in a balanced, responsible way — without drama, without delay, without inflicting the kind of unnecessary wound on our economy that we should not be allowing to happen at this time.”

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/282427-obama-to-make-case-against-spending-cuts#ixzz2KhSvCElu

Clips quote Morsi calling Obama a liar, urging Muslims to nurse hatred of Jews

Media watchdog group
MEMRI published Thursday additional statements made by Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi before entering office, in which he accused US President Barack Obama of lying in his 2009 Cairo speech and urged Muslims “to nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred towards those Zionists and Jews.”

“One American president after another – and most recently, that Obama – talks about American guarantees for the safety of the Zionists in Palestine. [Obama] was very clear when he uttered his empty words on the land of Egypt. He uttered many lies, of which he couldn’t have fulfilled a single word, even if he were sincere – which he is not,” said Morsi referring to Obama’s “A New Beginning” speech, which he delivered on June 9, 2009, in Cairo University and in which he called for improved understanding and relations between the Muslim world and the West and for peace between Israel the Palestinians.

Morsi’s remarks came from a speech he made in 2010 when he was a leading Muslim Brotherhood figure. The remarks were revived when an Egyptian TV show aired them last week to highlight and mock Morsi’s current policies.

In the same address, Morsi said: “Dear brothers, we must not forget to nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred towards those Zionists and Jews, and all those who support them. They must be nursed on hatred. The hatred must continue.”

The new quotes found, translated, reposted and transcribed by the Middle East Media Research Institute, came out hours after the Obama administration issued a statement saying the Egyptian presidency’s clarification over past anti-Jewish and anti-Israel comments is welcome but not enough to ease the White house’s concerns.

The statement by President Morsi’s office rejected discrimination and incitement to violence based on religion. The State Department called it “an important first step” but said the US continues to look for Morsi and other Egyptian leaders to demonstrate a commitment to religious tolerance and Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.

The US has said Morsi’s 2010 remarks — in which he urged hatred of Jews and called Zionists “pigs” and “bloodsuckers” while he was a leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood — are “deeply offensive” and need to be repudiated.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland would not say if Washington is demanding that Morsi personally repudiate the remarks, but she made clear the US needs to see more than the statement from his office to be convinced he no longer holds to the earlier views.

“From our perspective, that statement was an important first step to make clear that the type of offensive rhetoric that we saw in 2010 is not acceptable, not productive and shouldn’t be part of a democratic Egypt,” she told reporters. “That said, we look to President Morsi and Egyptian leaders to demonstrate in both word and in deed their commitment to religious tolerance and to upholding all of Egypt’s international obligations.”

On Wednesday, Morsi sought to defuse Washington’s anger over his past remarks, telling a group of visiting U.S. senators that his comments were taken out of context and were a denunciation of Israeli policies and not Israel itself or the Jewish people, according to a spokesman. The spokesman said Morsi told the lawmakers that a distinction must be made between the two.

Later Wednesday, after the State Department declined to comment on the spokesman’s explanation, Morsi’s office went further by releasing an English-language statement that said “the president strongly believes that we must respect and indeed celebrate our common humanity and does not accept or condone derogatory statements regarding any religious or ethnic group.”

Nuland said Thursday that her comments applied to that statement and not the spokesman’s remarks.

The flap is a new twist in Morsi’s attempts to reconcile his background as a veteran of the Muslim Brotherhood — a vehemently anti-Israel and anti-US group — and the requirements of his role as head of state, which include keeping the strategic relationship with Washington, which wants Egypt to continue to honor its 1979 peace deal with Israel.

Morsi has promised to abide by Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel and has continued security cooperation with Israel over the volatile Sinai Peninsula and their border. In November, Morsi brokered a truce between the Jewish state and Gaza’s Hamas rulers in November, a feat that won him warm praise from the Americans.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/new-clips-quote-morsi-calling-obama-a-liar-urging-muslims-to-nurse-hatred-of-jews/

GREENWALD: CIA Nominee John Brennan Is Being Rewarded For Extremism And Dishonesty

 

 

Prior to President Obama's first inauguration in 2009, a controversy erupted over reports that he intended to appoint John Brennan as CIA director. That controversy, in which I participated, centered around the fact that Brennan, as a Bush-era CIA official, had expressly endorsed Bush's programs of torture (other than waterboarding) and rendition and also was a vocal advocate of immunizing lawbreaking telecoms for their role in the illegal Bush NSA eavesdropping program. As a result, Brennan withdrew his name from consideration, issuing a bitter letter blaming "strong criticism in some quarters prompted by [his] previous service with the" CIA.
This "victory" of forcing Brennan's withdrawal proved somewhat Pyrrhic, as Obama then appointed him as his top counter-terrorism adviser, where he exerted at least as much influence as he would have had as CIA Director, if not more. In that position, Brennan last year got caught outright lying when he claimed Obama's drone program caused no civilian deaths in Pakistan over the prior year. He also spouted complete though highly influential falsehoods to the world in the immediate aftermath of the Osama bin Laden killing, including claiming that bin Laden "engaged in a firefight" with Navy SEALS and had "used his wife as a human shield". Brennan has also been in charge of many of Obama's most controversial and radical policies, including "signature strikes" in Yemen - targeting people without even knowing who they are - and generally seizing the power to determine who will be marked for execution without any due process, oversight or transparency.
As it typically does in the US National Security State, all of that deceit and radicalism is resulting not in recrimination or loss of credibility for Brennan, but in reward and promotion. At 1 pm EST today, Obama will announce that he has selected Brennan to replace Gen. David Petraeus as CIA chief: the same position for which, four short years ago, Brennan's pro-torture-and-rendition past rendered him unfit and unconfirmable.
Although I actively opposed Brennan's CIA nomination in 2008, I can't quite muster the energy or commitment to do so now. Indeed, the very idea that someone should be disqualified from service in the Obama administration because of involvement in and support for extremist Bush terrorism polices seems quaint and obsolete, given the great continuity between Bush and Obama on these issues. Whereas in 2008 it seemed uncertain in which direction Obama would go, making it important who wielded influence, that issue is now settled: Brennan is merely a symptom of Obama's own extremism in these areas, not a cause. This continuity will continue with or without Brennan because they are, rather obviously, Obama's preferred policies.
Still, this is worth commenting on because the drastic change between the reaction to Brennan in 2008 and now is revealing. The New York Times article this morning on the appointment claims that "it is uncertain whether the torture issue will now cause any problems for Mr. Brennan." Of course, there is nothing at all uncertain about that: "the torture issue" won't cause any problems for Brennan, as it did in 2008, because Obama has buried that issue with his "Look Forward, not Backward" decrees; because most people who claimed concern over such issues back in 2008 have resigned themselves to Obama's posture in this area; and because, with very rare exception, there are no more serious campaigns mounted against Obama's decisions except from the American Right.
It is a perfect illustration of the Obama legacy that a person who was untouchable as CIA chief in 2008 because of his support for Bush's most radical policies is not only Obama's choice for the same position now, but will encounter very little resistance. Within this change one finds one of the most significant aspects of the Obama presidency: his conversion of what were once highly contentious right-wing policies into harmonious dogma of the DC bipartisan consensus. Then again, given how the CIA operates, one could fairly argue that Brennan's eagerness to deceive and his long record of supporting radical and unaccountable powers make him the perfect person to run that agency. It seems clear that this is Obama's calculus.

UPDATE

There's one more point worth noting: the reason Obama needs a new CIA chief is because David Petraeus was forced to resign. Here we see the ethos and morality of imperial Washington: past support for torture and rendition does not disqualify one for a top national security position; only an extramarital affair can do that.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/greenwald-john-brennans-extremism-and-dishonesty-rewarded-with-cia-director-nomination-2013-1#ixzz2HQ2vnvUI