The Adventures of Bob Woodward and the Obama Spin Machine

March, 1, 2013 by nicedeb

Incredibly, liberal legend Bob Woodward has now become a bete noire to the left, and a darling to the right. So much so, he’s been invited to attend the CPAC 2013 Blogbash. So much so that The GOP House Conference created this “Adventures of Bob Woodward comic strip:

President Obama and His Operatives at the White House Proposed the Sequester

“Then-OMB Director Jack Lew, now the White House chief of staff, and White House Legislative Affairs Director Rob Nabors pitched the idea to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). (Bob Woodward book could bolster Republican attack on W.H., Politico, Austin Wright, September 7, 2012)

“Lew, Nabors, Sperling and Bruce Reed, Biden’s chief of staff, had initially decided to propose using language from the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction law as the model for the trigger. It seemed tough enough to apply to the current situation. It would require a sequester with half the cuts from Defense, and the other half from domestic programs.” (The Price Of Politics, Bob Woodward, 2012, p. 341)

“It was Obama’s negotiating team that came up with the idea for defense cuts in 2011.” (“The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed.” Politifact, October, 24, 2012)

“What the president said is not correct (regarding sequestration),” Woodward told POLITICO Tuesday. “He’s mistaken. And it’s refuted by the people who work for him.” (Bob Woodward: Obama ‘mistaken’ on sequester, Politico, Leigh Munsil, October 23, 2012)

“Woodward reports in his book that White House Office of Management Director Jack Lew and Legislative Affairs Director Rob Nabors took the proposal for sequestration to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and then it was presented to congressional Republicans.” (Bob Woodward: Obama ‘mistaken’ on sequester, Politico, Leigh Munsil, October 23, 2012)

“Republicans demanded spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit last summer. The White House and Democrats in Congress insisted that steep cuts to the Defense Department accompany the domestic-spending reductions favored by the GOP.” (President Obama’s big sequester gamble, Politico, Jonathan Allen and Scott Wong, October 23, 2012)

President Obama Doubled-Down on His Sequester

“My message to [Congress] is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off-ramps on this one.” (President Obama,Super Committee Statement, November 21, 2011)

House Republicans Acted to Replace the Obama Sequester

House Republicans took steps to replace President Obama’s sequestration, passing bills on two separate occasions. Neither of which the Democratic-controlled Senate considered.

H.R. 5652, Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act

H.R. 6684, Spending Reduction Act of 2012

In case you missed him on Hannity, last night, Woodward said that although he never used the word, “threat” to describe Sperling’s email, it’s no way for a White House to operate. He’s standing by everything he has said regarding the sequester, including his charge that Obama’s moving the goalposts.

#RememberBreitbart

March, 1, 2013 by nicedeb

I’ve been neglecting my primary blog, today, because I’ve been busy posting at The Conversation. It’s a busy news day, plus – as you can imagine, as March 1 is the one year anniversary of Andrew Breitbart’s death, all of the Breitbart bloggers are remembering him in their own special ways.

Here’s my contribution:

In a few weeks many of us are going to CPAC, and there will be no funny, fiery, fabulous Andrew Breitbart to rally the conservative troops. No gregarious Andrew visiting the bloggers lounge to give us a pep talk and pose for pictures with the bloggers, etc. I can’t tell you how sad it makes me that our “pied piper” (his words) will be absent at CPAC 2013. There have been many moments throughout the past year that I’ve felt that pang – “Oh if only Andrew Breitbart were alive”, but in a few weeks I know it’s going to be especially raw…

From 2009 – 3/2012, whenever I saw a political speech at a conservative conference or event – Andrew’s was always my favorite. Always. I hung on every word from this extraordinary, one in a million man. I posted so many his videos at my blog over the years, I started a category just for him.

At his wake, last year in Washington DC, Neil W. McCabe of Human Events said something I thought was very insightful:

For so many years, he toiled in the shadows as one of the most influential people in the media that nobody knew. Then for a few years…. he burned like this – flame – just showing us what to do and how to do it…”

Head to The Conversation for more memories and tributes.

Thousands Attend Gun Rally in Albany NY (Video)

March, 1, 2013 by nicedeb

Oh, I forgot all about this.

Image via Biz Journal

Organizing for Action was going to bus drones to Albany, joining forces with the SEIU to clash with NRA pro 2nd Amendment folks at their rally, Thursday, but in the end, they thought better of it.

The Blaze reported:

The National Rifle Association on Thursday held a massive rally in Albany, N.Y. to protest the Empire State’s restrictive gun laws signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in January. The state’s massive gun control package gave New York the strictest gun laws in the United States.

NRA President David Keene fired up thousands of supporters outside the state Capitol, saying “we’ve lose battles before, we’ll not lose this war.”

“We’ll help you defeat the politicians depriving you of your rights,” Keene said. “We’ll do whatever is necessary. We will not allow those freedoms to be taken from us.”

Biz Journal reported:

In a muddy park outside the state Capitol, NRA president David Keene punctuated his speech by hoisting a green Remington Arms union T-shirt—a prominent reminder that major and small employers alike in New York’s Mohawk Valley could be impacted by the new gun laws.

The laws, passed last month after the shooting of 20 first-graders at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, don’t say anything about manufacturing firearms. The laws, championed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, do ban the sale of almost all semi-automatic weapons within state lines (and take a number of other steps).

Remington employs 1,300 union workers in the village of Ilion, 80 miles west of Albany. The sprawling factory that makes more than 730,000 firearms each year. About 50 Remington employees attended the rally.

Speakers at the gun rally included Senator Mike Nozzolio, Assemblyman Brian Kolb and NRA President David Keene:

Senator Greg Ball gave a fiery speech at gun rally:

“This is a tough, disgusting, nasty business, and I don’t know how long I’ll be involved with it, but as long as I’m in politics, I’ll be standing shoulder to shoulder with you, and I will fight with you until hell freezes over….” he told the crowd: