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Obama calls automatic spending cuts ‘dumb’; blames GOP
President Barack Obama said the “dumb” automatic across-the-board cuts going into effect today are the fault of Republican resistance to a reasonable deal to avert the sequestration’s budget reductions.
“I know that this has been some of the conventional wisdom that’s been floating around Washington,” Obama told reporters after meeting with congressional leaders. “Even though most people agree that I’m being reasonable, that most people agree that I am presenting a fair deal — the fact that [Republicans] don’t take it means that I should somehow do a Jedi mind meld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right,” he said.
Earlier, Obama met with House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi.
In a brief statement to reporters after the meeting, Boehner reiterated that Republicans will continue to oppose Democratic proposals to raise new revenues to offset the cuts.
Alabama passes school vouchers for students at failing schools, Dems erupt
Republicans dropped a legislative bombshell tonight as they slammed through a dramatically revamped education bill that will give tax credits for families at “failing schools” to send their children to private school or another public school.
Lawmakers voted mid-day to send a school flexibility bill — that would let school systems seek waivers from some policies — to conference committee. The conference committee reported a dramatically different bill that included the flexibility measures plus what some lawmakers called school vouchers.
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Governor Robert Bentley insisted that this represented a step forward for children whose choices had been restricted to just the failing schools in the government education monopoly prior to the passage of the bill, which Bentley will sign next week.
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Rep. Mary Moore, D-Birmingham, as she was leaving the House chamber threw her hands over her head and shouted, “Welcome to the new confederacy where a bunch of white men are now going to take over black schools.”
Source: Hot Air
Obama On Gay Marriage Brief: It Was Important To Articulate ‘What This Administration Stands For’
President Barack Obama on Friday elaborated on his administration’s friend-of-the-court brief filed with the Supreme Court ahead of a case that will determine the constitutionality of laws such as Proposition 8, the 2008 California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage.
Obama said the brief, which urged the court to acknowledge the right of same-sex couples to get married, stemmed from his well-publicized “evolution” on the issue and that his administration couldn’t avoid weighing in on the case.
“As everybody here knows, last year upon a long period of reflection, I concluded that we cannot discriminate against same-sex couples when it comes to marriage, that the basic principle that America is founded on, the idea that we’re all created equal, applies to everybody regardless of sexual orientation, as well as race or gender or religion or ethnicity,” Obama said during a Friday afternoon press conference. And, you know, I think that the same evolution that I’ve gone through is an evolution that the country as a whole has gone through. And I think it is a profoundly positive thing.”
He added, “So that when the Supreme Court essentially called the question by taking this case about California’s law, I didn’t feel like that was something that this administration could avoid. I felt it was important for us to articulate what I believe and what this administration stands for.”
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Source: TPM
Read more: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/obama-on-same-sex-marriage-brief-it-was
Scalia’s slam of the Voting Rights Act is a bar-stool rant
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is alleged to be one of the great intellects of conservative jurisprudence, but his comments during oral arguments over a challenge to the 1965 Voting Rights Act displayed all the mental acuity of a third-tier talk radio bozo.
Shelby County, Ala., is making the case against the voting law. Section 5 of the act empowers the federal government to negate new local and state voting rules if they would lead to discrimination against minority voters. It has been enforced primarily in Southern states that had a long, dismal history of preventing African Americans from voting. Shelby County contends that the problem has been remedied and so Section 5 is no longer justified.
Rep. John Lewis of Georgia begs to differ. Lewis was severely beaten in Selma during the 1965 “Bloody Sunday” police riot directed against peaceful civil rights marchers. The horror of that scene as it played out on America’s television screens led directly to congressional approval of the Voting Rights Act.
In an interview with USA Today, Lewis talked about the methods used to bar blacks from voting back in 1965, and insisted that more subtle impediments still are being employed to undercut voting rights today.
“You may not have what we had, such as the literacy tests or asking people to count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap or the number of jelly beans in a jar,” Lewis said. “It may not be the overt acts of violence that we had and witnessed during the ’60s. But the result is the same.”
As recently as 2006, both houses of Congress agreed with Lewis. After extensive testimony, lawmakers determined that a long list of problems still exists and they renewed the Voting Rights Act for an additional 25 years. The vote was overwhelming in the House unanimous in the Senate and was hailed by President George W. Bush as a victory for American democracy.
In court on Wednesday, however, Scalia mocked that vote. He said the Senate’s unanimity simply proved the law had not been given serious consideration. The senators were afraid, he said, to cast a vote against a law with a “wonderful” name. He went on to assert that the reauthorization of the act was merely “a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement.”
That sort of legal reasoning may be good enough for someone sitting on a bar stool well into his third pint, but it is not good enough for the highest court in the land. Scalia makes self-serving assumptions about what was on the minds of senators in 2006 — afraid, not serious, enamored with a name — with no facts to back up his barbs.
Tossing actual statistics back at Scalia, Justice Elena Kagan cited a string of continued voting-rights violations. As to the state of mind of the senators, she said the unanimous vote was pretty good proof that the evidence of contemporary abuses was convincing, even to conservative Southerners.
“It was clear to 98 senators, including every senator from a covered state, who decided that there was a continuing need for this piece of legislation,” Kagan said.
Undeterred, Scalia opined that a law governing voting rights is “not the kind of question you can leave to Congress.” Oh, really? The right to vote is the core of our constitutional democracy. It is not, as Scalia says, “a racial entitlement,” it is an American entitlement. It seems that might be a very useful thing for Congress to watch over and protect. It was eminently important in 1965 and remains important today.
One need only consider the outrageous voter suppression measures attempted in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and other states in the 2012 election cycle to see that the right to vote is still something certain Americans must fight for. It is true that impediments put in the way of black and Latino voters now are not so much about racial animosity as they are about the fact that those racial groups overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, but the effect, as Lewis says, is the same.
Given the weirdness of his comments, it might not be wrong to assume Scalia’s true concern is less about “racial entitlement” than it is about making sure his fellow Republicans are entitled. Entitled, that is, to manipulate elections when they can no longer win fair and square.
Morning Joe Takes On Woodward Vs. White House Spat: ‘You Do Choose Your Words Carefully’
Morning Joe sought to further dissect the Bob Woodward/White House debacle, following yesterday’s release of the actual emails between Woodward and Gene Sperling. Like many others, the panel largely dismissed Woodward’s assertions after seeing the actual text, but Joe Scarborough did note that “you do choose your words carefully.”
The general consensus around the table seemed to be that Sperling’s just a nice guy, not someone who threatens people. Scarborough went on to question why Woodward would make such assertions when there’s obviously an email trail. “You don’t have guys whispering to you in basements anymore.”
“His sense of propriety was offended by this,” POLITICO’s Mike Allen contended. “His bigger point is, he says he doesn’t think this is the way to do business by the White House.”
Maybe, Scarborough remarked, things got a little personal and Woodward was the one who got thin-skinned. The tone of the emails was rather friendly, Allen said, alluding to communication between “mobsters.” “These are people who expect to do business with each other again.”
Referring to her husband who is an investigative reporter, Mika Brzezinski said she’s heard phone calls between him and officials… and they get ugly. “I can hear f-bombs flying at times,” she said — so this Woodward exchange is “as docile and polite as it gets.”
However, “you do choose your words carefully,” Scarborough said. “If I wanted to be polite but brush somebody back, a little baseball metaphor, not throw at their head but just brush them back, I would say regret. ‘You may regret it.’ It’s not a threat. [...] I’m not saying Bob didn’t overreact here.”
He went on to discuss how not-so-pleasant messages are conveyed through niceties.
“I’m telling you as a friend. You would never, dot dot dot…”
Take a look, via MSNBC:
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