May 22, 2012
FSM HOT TOPICS
Exclusive – Oval Office Watch – Tuesday, June 1
by OVAL OFFICE WATCH June 1, 2010
Obama: Honor the fallen with deeds - GO HERE for president's Memorial Day address.
First family enjoys sleepover in own Chicago home - SEE HERE.
Biden praises world's 'finest military' at Arlington - GO HERE to view video, read article.
US worried about North Korean 'follow-on' to torpedo attack - HERE.
Obama Memorial Day speech rained out
Anne E. Kornblut, Washington Post.com
President Obama was rushed offstage at a Memorial Day event after a massive lightning and rain storm opened up on the open field where he was to speak.
Obama told thousands of guests at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery to get to a place of safety.
"Excuse me, everybody listen up," Obama told the crowd. "We are a little bit concerned about lightning. This may not be safe. I know that all of you are here to commemorate the fallen. What we'd like to do is if possible have people move back to their cars and if this passes in the next 15-20 minutes I'll stick around."
He said he hoped the ceremony could resume later. "But we don't want to endanger anyone, particularly the children, in the audience," he said. "A little bit of rain doesn't hurt anybody but we don't want anybody struck by lightning."
Obama was then whisked into a motorcade which sat, unmoving, for several minutes, unable to proceed in the heavy rain. Eventually the ceremony was canceled on account of the weather.
Before his scheduled remarks, Obama lay a wreath near a cluster of headstones as light drizzle fell. By the time he reached the podium, the skies had opened up. Read article.
Oil Spill: Obama Tells Gulf Residents 'You Will Not Be Abandoned'
Christopher Weber, Politics Daily.com
During a second trip this month to areas along the Gulf affected by the disastrous oil spill, President Obama toured beaches sticky with crude, was briefed on efforts to cap the flowing well, and reassured residents that the clean up is the government's "highest priority and it deserves a response that is equal to the task."
"I'm here to tell you that you are not alone, you will not be abandoned, you will not be left behind," Obama said during a speech Friday at a Coast Guard station in Grande Isle, La. "The media may get tired of the story, but we will not. We will be on your side and we will see this through."
The president announced the National Guard was deploying about 1,400 members in four states to join the 20,000 people already working to contain and clean up the spill. He said 1,4000 boats are in the gulf unloading millions of feet of hard and sorbent boom, the rope-like materials that float on the water to contain the crude and keep it off shore.
The speech was intended to show empathy for the beleaguered residents of the Gulf and showcase Obama's leadership and the strong federal response to the crisis. Read article.
MMS was troubled long before oil spill
CNN.com
The Minerals Management Service, a division within the Interior Department, was a troubled agency long before the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the recent revelations of employee misconduct.
The MMS issued permits for the Deepwater Horizon drill rig -- contracted by BP -- which exploded on April 20. The explosion killed 11 people and resulted in an oil spill that is threatening parts of the Gulf.
Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar, during an appearance Wednesday before the House Committee on Natural Resources, said he was trying to change the agency's culture and its structure, which some critics say leads to mismanagement.
"My belief is that most of the employees of the MMS are good public servants," Salazar said. He, however, acknowledged some of the past conduct was "scandalous" and "reprehensible." Read article - SEE Salazar video.
Drilling Agency Gets New Director Day After Elizabeth Birnbaum Quits
Tom Diemer, Politics Daily.com
The Obama administraion moved quickly Friday to fill a vacancy at the top of the troubled Minerals Management Service -- the agency responsible for policing offshore drilling for oil and gas. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar chose from within, naming Bob Abbey, currently director of the Bureau of Land Management, to succeed Elizabeth Birnbaum, who resigned Thursday after only 11 months on the job, The New York Times reported.
Abbey, who oversees oil and mineral extraction on government-owned lands, has his work cut out for him. Salazar wants to split up the Minerals Management Service so that separate agencies handle leasing and drilling operations, safety and environmental protection, and the collection of royalties. President Obama and others have criticized the cozy relationship that has existed in the past between MMS and the oil companies it is supposed to regulate. Read article.
Fight in Kandahar: US says it won't look like war
Anne Gearan, AP
In the make-or-break struggle for Kandahar, birthplace of Afghanistan's Taliban insurgency, U.S. commanders will try to pull off the military equivalent of brain surgery: defeating the militants with minimal use of force.
The goal of U.S.-led NATO forces will be to avoid inspiring support for the Taliban even as the coalition tries to root them out when the Kandahar operation begins in earnest next month.
The ancient silk road city - a dust-covered, impoverished jumble of one- and two-story concrete and mud brick - may not look like much of a prize.
But Kandahar, with a population of more than a million, was once the Taliban's informal capital and an al-Qaida stronghold. It has served for centuries as a smuggler's crossroads and trading hub linking southern Afghanistan to the Indian subcontinent.
President Barack Obama's counterinsurgency strategy focuses on protecting population centers such as Kandahar from Taliban predation, with the hope of building support for the center government in Kabul. Read article.
Options studied for a possible Pakistan strike
Greg Miller, Washington Post.com
The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country's tribal areas, according to senior military officials.
Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration's need for retaliatory options, the officials said. They stressed that a U.S. reprisal would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Obama convinced that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes is insufficient.
"Planning has been reinvigorated in the wake of Times Square," one of the officials said.
At the same time, the administration is trying to deepen ties to Pakistan's intelligence officials in a bid to head off any attack by militant groups. The United States and Pakistan have recently established a joint military intelligence center on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, and are in negotiations to set up another one near Quetta, the Pakistani city where the Afghan Taliban is based, according to the U.S. military officials. They and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding U.S. military and intelligence activities in Pakistan.
The "fusion centers" are meant to bolster Pakistani military operations by providing direct access to U.S. intelligence, including real-time video surveillance from drones controlled by the U.S. Special Operations Command, the officials said. But in an acknowledgment of the continuing mistrust between the two governments, the officials added that both sides also see the centers as a way to keep a closer eye on one another, as well as to monitor military operations and intelligence activities in insurgent areas. Read article.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal says fight will extend long beyond July 2011
Heidi Vogt & Rahim Faiez, AP for MSNBC.com
The commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan said Sunday there is "clear evidence" that some Taliban fighters have trained in Iran.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters in the Afghan capital that Iran — Afghanistan's western neighbor — has generally assisted the Afghan government in fighting the insurgent group.
"There is, however, clear evidence of Iranian activity — in some cases providing weaponry and training to the Taliban — that is inappropriate," he said. McChrystal said NATO forces are working to stop both the training and the weapons trafficking.
Last month, McChrystal said there were indications that Taliban were training in Iran, but not very many and not in a way that it appeared it was part of an Iranian government policy. He did not give details on how many people have trained in Iran at Sunday's news conference. Read article.
Can War Crimes Charges Be Far Off?
William A. Jacobson, Legal insurrection.blogspot.com
Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said Thursday that he would deliver a report on June 3 to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva declaring that the “life and death power” of drones should be entrusted to regular armed forces, not intelligence agencies. He contrasted how the military and the C.I.A. responded to allegations that strikes had killed civilians by mistake.
While the U.N. has not taken the position yet that such attacks constitute war crimes, the U.S. government is concerned with where this process may lead:
In recent months, top lawyers for the State Department and the Defense Department have tried to square the idea that the C.I.A.’s drone program is lawful with the United States’ efforts to prosecute Guantánamo Bay detainees accused of killing American soldiers in combat, according to interviews and a review of military documents
Mr. Alston, the United Nations official, said he agreed with the Obama legal team that “it is not per se illegal” under the laws of war for C.I.A. operatives to fire drone missiles “because anyone can stand up and start to act as a belligerent.” Still, he emphasized, they would not be entitled to battlefield immunity like soldiers.
I warned about this previously in Drone Strikes Put Obama Admin Officials At Risk, noting how the same Mr. Alston previously raised the issue of drone strikes constituting human rights violations. Read article.
War on the Korean Peninsula: Thinking the Unthinkable
Bill Powell, Time.com
"A symphony of death." That's the chilling phrase that Kurt Campbell, who is now Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Obama Administration, once used to describe the likely outcome of any military encounter on the Korean peninsula between the U.S., its ally South Korea and their mutual enemy across the 38th parallel in the North. The possibility of war breaking out once again in Korea is so unthinkable that a lot of people in various military establishments — the Pentagon, South Korea's armed forces and China's People's Liberation Army — actually spend a lot of time thinking about it.
The truce between North and South has lasted for 57 years, but a peace treaty has never been signed, and now, in the wake of the North's attack on a South Korean naval vessel — and the South's formal accusation that the Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo — tensions are at their highest level since 1994, when North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire."
Seoul has already made it clear that it will not seek military retaliation, and Washington and Beijing have said all the right things about trying to ensure that "cooler heads" prevail, as China's State Councilor, Dai Bingguo, said in talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Beijing on Tuesday, May 25. Read article.
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The #twittergulag saga continues: @gopfirecracker suspended, others still trapped
May 21, 2012 11:54 PM
#freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker #freegopfirecracker— Dale Holt (@DaleHolt8) May 22, 2012 Come on conservatives! Everyone rallied around @ChrisLoesch when he was suspended! Now its @gopfirecracker so stand up! #freegopfirecracker— Schmoop (@RGSchmoop) May 22, 2012 Hey @twitter and @support – #FreeGOPfirecracker's account has been suspended. Please fix this mishap. Thank you.— Gabriella Hoffman (@Gabby_Hoffman) May 22, 2012 [...]
Cory Booker tweets #IStandWithObama; Hashtag hijackers flood the zone
May 21, 2012 11:39 PM
Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker, the Democrat who defended Bain from the Obama campaign's attacks yesterday morning, has been backpedaling more furiously than a clown on a high wire. Tonight, in an effort to mollify his critics on the Left, he posted four tweets that included the hashtag #IStandWithObama. Conservatives immediately took over the #IStandWithObama hashtag to mock President Obama, and within an hour it became a trending topic.
Cory Booker tries to clear up his position on Bain attacks
May 21, 2012 10:25 PM
Cory Booker continued his quest to run screaming away from the apparently too candid comments he made on Meet the Press on Sunday. Despite attempts earlier today to #FreeCoryBooker from those trying to force him to apologize Booker went on the Rachel Maddow show to do everything he could to walk back what he said. Que the mockery.
Obama's 'When you're president' picture spawns hashtag
May 21, 2012 09:59 PM
"When you're president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot." -Barack Obama
Cue #WhenYouArePresident
Obama takes anti-Romney rant to Twitter
May 21, 2012 09:49 PM
It started off this morning with a video of a woman named Valerie from Indiana posted by Barack Obama’s official Twitter account. 12 hours, 12 tweets and a failed hashtag later, Obama’s reelection team took the day to tweet ongoing misinformation about Mitt Romney’s record in the private sector, specifically Bain Capital’s work with the [...]
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