WH: Obama 'Is Not Particularly Concerned' Whether Susan Rice Misled the American People

Weekly Standard
Daniel Halper

In response to a question from reporter Major Garrett on whether the Obama administration's mishandling of Benghazi raises "core questions of basic competency," press secretary Jay Carney revealed that Barack Obama "is not particularly concerned" about whether Susan Rice misled the American people:



"What the president is worried about, Major, is what happened and why in Benghazi. He is not particularly concerned about whether the ambassador or I went out and talked about the fact that we believed extremists might have been responsible. And whether we named them as al Qaeda or not does not--no, it certainly doesn't have any bearing on what happened and who was responsible as that investigation was continuing on Benghazi."

White House: Syrian president Assad lied about Houla massacre in June 4 speech

WorldMathaba
Quoriana

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was lying when he denied his government had any involvement in the Houla massacre in which more than 100 civilians were slaughtered over one weekend, the White House said on Monday.

Jay Carney, president Barack Obama’s spokesman, replied to the question if Assad lied in his June 4 speech [1] when he denied his forces killed innocent civilians in a cluster of small villages near Houla with: “Yes. As evidenced by the very massacres that the Assad regime participated in and is now denying, the sooner that political transition takes place, the better for the people of Syria, and the better the chances that a bloody sectarian war will be avoided ... it is obvious that history will judge Assad as a brutal dictator who murdered his own people.”

Assad addressed Syria’s parliament on Sunday morning local time in a defiant speech at the People’s Assembly, vowing he will continue to fight the terrorism in his country which he called “a real war waged from outside”.

“Colonisation remains colonisation but it changes its faces and methods”, the Syrian president said. “We have to fight terrorism for the nation to heal and we will firmly continue to do so. We are prepared to dialogue with those who do not receive instructions from abroad, but there won’t be dialogue with those who seek foreign intervention.”

Assad’s People’s Assembly speech on Houla massacre

On the Houla massacre president Assad said in his speech [translated from Arabic language]:

Does the White House Only Love Good Journalism When It's Not About Them?

The Atlantic Wire
Dashiell Bennett

In a briefly interesting moment in an otherwise ho-hum press briefing, the Obama administration was called out on its double standard of praising journalists who take down other governments, while simultaneously stifling them here at home.

Press Secretary Jay Carney opened his daily briefing yesterday by saying a few words about the sacrifices of journalists who have given their lives covering the civil war in Syria. When it came time for his question, ABC News' Jake Tapper saw an opening to question the White House's own approach to protecting journalists, albeit in a much less dangerous context. Tapper asked, why, if the administration is so supportive of good journalism, they keep suing whistle blowers for violating the Espionage Act?

As you might expect, Carney's answer was not very instructive, but Tapper pressed the point again by asking, "So the truth should come out abroad; it shouldn’t come out here?" A good question that hits directly at the hypocrisy found in most governments — the idea that openness is always a good thing, except when it isn't. It's not just a question of good journalism either, when revolutionaries occupying Egyptian squares are praised and supported while college kids in California get pepper-sprayed in the face. It certainly feels like a double standard that benefits the U.S. government at the expense of everyone else.



No matter what Carney think of "aggressive journalism" it's a good bet that he's growing a little weary of seeing it come from Jake Tapper. Here's some of the phrases that seem to frequently appear in sentences featuring the name "Jake Tapper" and "Jay Carney"

* "Get Into It"

* "Grills"

* "Testy Exchange"

* "Vs."

* "Challenges"

* "Flummoxes"

House rejects proposal to raise debt ceiling

Washington Post
Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane

With an August deadline looming, the House overwhelmingly refused Tuesday to raise the legal limit on government borrowing, setting the stage for a long, sweaty summer of haggling over the shape of the largest debt-reduction package in at least two decades.

Not a single GOP lawmaker voted for the measure to raise the limit on the national debt from $14.3 trillion to $16.7 trillion — a sum sufficient to cover the government’s bills through the end of next year. Republican leaders said their troops would reject any increase without a plan to sharply curtail spending and, thus, future borrowing.

“Tonight’s vote illustrates that there is no support in the People’s House for a debt limit increase without real spending cuts and binding budget process reforms,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said in a statement, adding: “The families and business owners throughout the country want Washington to begin to live within its means and stop maxing out the credit card.”

 

Polls show that a higher debt limit is extremely unpopular with a large majority of voters, which has left Democrats leery of calling for an increase. On Tuesday, as the House voted 318 to 97 against raising the limit, nearly half of the chamber’s Democrats sided with the Republicans. In doing so, they ignored a long-standing request from the Obama administration to boost the limit before plunging into a complex and politically difficult battle over the size of the federal budget.

“I don’t intend to advise our members to subject themselves to a 30-second political ad and attack,” House Minority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said hours before the vote, noting that GOP leaders offered the bill with the intention of letting their party’s members vote against it. Seven Democrats voted “present” to protest the manner in which the Republican majority called up the bill.
Hoyer and other Democrats accused House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) of toying with the issue and running the risk that the “no” vote could roil financial markets. Bond traders, however, appeared to pay little attention to a move that many observers on Wall Street and in Washington dismissed as political theater.

“I didn’t even know they had a vote tonight, to be honest with you,” said Ian Lyngen, a senior government bond strategist at CRT Capital Group in Stamford, Conn. “The only real event that the market is focused on is the point at which they run out of money and have to shut down the government” — a date that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has fixed at Aug. 2.

On that date, without additional borrowing authority, Geithner has said, the Treasury would be forced to default on at least some of the government’s obligations, an outcome that could have far-reaching consequences for global financial markets and the U.S. economy.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that default would be “calamitous.” But he dismissed the evening vote, saying Obama believes that Congress ultimately will act both to raise the debt ceiling and to rein in future borrowing.

Obama: “I’m working on gun control under the radar”

Greeley Gazette
by Jack Minor

Plans include enacting restrictions via executive order, bypassing Congress

While the Obama administration said it is committed to gun rights, a gun control advocate has spilled the beans, saying Obama is using stealth to work on firearms restrictions.

 The Washington Post did a story on Steve Crowley, the White House gun control czar. Crowley is considered to be an expert on regulation and tort law. His approach to gun control appears to be a regulatory one.

 According to the article, Jim and Sarah Brady visited Capital Hill on March 30, the 30th anniversary of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan; to push for a ban on "large magazines."

 The couple reportedly were meeting with press secretary, Jay Carney, when, according to Sarah Brady, the President came in. She said the President told her he wanted to talk about gun control and "fill us in that it was very much on his agenda."

 She went on to say Obama told her, "I just want you to know that we are working on it. We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar."

 The statement reinforces an article in the Huffington Post describing how the administration is exploring ways to bypass Congress and enact gun control through executive action.

 The Department of Justice reportedly is holding meetings discussing the White House's options for enacting regulations on its own or through adjoining agencies and departments. "Administration officials said talk of executive orders or agency action are among a host of options that President Barack Obama and his advisers are considering. "

 Dudley Brown, president of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, says he is not surprised to hear the President is trying to unilaterally enact gun control regulations. "It’s clear that President Obama and Sarah Brady have been using the ATF to enact what they can’t get through Congress: a ban on the importation of self defense shotguns, new reporting requirements for multiple rifle sales, and the attempt to smuggle firearms across the border to Mexican gang members are just a few examples."