Motley Moose – Archive

The President’s Weekly Address post is also the Weekend Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comment threads.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, President Obama says this is a year of action, and he will do everything he can to restore opportunity for all. The President already lifted the wages for federal contract workers, and he calls on the American people to tell Congress to finish the job by boosting the federal minimum wage for all workers to $10.10 and give America a raise.

From the White House – Weekly Address

This week, President Obama took action to lift more workers’ wages by requiring that federal contractors pay their employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour. In this week’s address, he highlights that executive action and calls on Congress to pass a bill to raise the federal minimum wage for all workers.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, President Obama says he will do everything he can to make a difference for the middle class and those working to get into the middle class, so that we can expand opportunity for all and build an economy that works for the American people

From the White House – Weekly Address

In his weekly address, President Obama discussed the goals he laid out in the State of the Union address to expand opportunity for all so that every American can get ahead and have a shot at creating a better life for their kids.

From the White House – Enhanced Broadcast

The speech is over, but the work of 2014 is just beginning.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In his weekly address, President Obama said that the Administration has taken another important step to protect women at college by establishing the White House Task Force on Protecting Students from Sexual Assault. An estimated 1 in 5 women is sexually assaulted at college, and the President said that we will keep taking actions like strengthening the criminal justice system, reaching out to survivors, and changing social norms so that all Americans can feel safe and protected as they pursue their own piece of the American dream.

We’re now more than a year into President Obama’s second term and Ted Nugent is still a free man and free to spew crap such as this (h/t Bob Cesca):

I have obviously failed to galvanize and prod, if not shame enough Americans to be ever vigilant not to let a Chicago communist raised communist educated communist nurtured subhuman mongrel like the ACORN community organizer gangster Barack Hussein Obama (emphasis partially Cesca’s and partially my own) to weasel his way into the top office of authority in the United States of America. I am heartbroken but I am not giving up. I think America will be America again when Barack Obama, [Attorney General] Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton, [Sen.] Dick Durbin, [former New York City Mayor] Michael Bloomberg and all of the liberal Democrats are in jail facing the just due punishment that their treasonous acts are clearly apparent.

So a lot of people would call that inflammatory speech. Well I would call it inflammatory speech when it’s your job to protect Americans and you look into the television camera and say what difference does it make that I failed in my job to provide security and we have four dead Americans. What difference does that make? Not to a chimpanzee or Hillary Clinton, I guess it doesn’t matter. (emphasis Cesca’s)

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, President Obama said 2014 will be a year of action, and called on both parties to help make this a breakthrough year for the United States by bringing back more good jobs and expanding opportunities for the middle class.

January 17, 2014, from the White House at 11am Eastern:

Official White House Transcript: Remarks by the President on Review of Signals Intelligence

[Post 9/11], in our rush to respond to a very real and novel set of threats, the risk of government overreach — the possibility that we lose some of our core liberties in pursuit of security — also became more pronounced.  We saw, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, our government engaged in enhanced interrogation techniques that contradicted our values.  As a Senator, I was critical of several practices, such as warrantless wiretaps.  And all too often new authorities were instituted without adequate public debate.

Through a combination of action by the courts, increased congressional oversight, and adjustments by the previous administration, some of the worst excesses that emerged after 9/11 were curbed by the time I took office.  But a variety of factors have continued to complicate America’s efforts to both defend our nation and uphold our civil liberties.

[…]

Now, to say that our intelligence community follows the law, and is staffed by patriots, is not to suggest that I or others in my administration felt complacent about the potential impact of these programs.  Those of us who hold office in America have a responsibility to our Constitution, and while I was confident in the integrity of those who lead our intelligence community, it was clear to me in observing our intelligence operations on a regular basis that changes in our technological capabilities were raising new questions about the privacy safeguards currently in place.

[…]

First, everyone who has looked at these problems, including skeptics of existing programs, recognizes that we have real enemies and threats, and that intelligence serves a vital role in confronting them.  We cannot prevent terrorist attacks or cyber threats without some capability to penetrate digital communications — whether it’s to unravel a terrorist plot; to intercept malware that targets a stock exchange; to make sure air traffic control systems are not compromised; or to ensure that hackers do not empty your bank accounts.  We are expected to protect the American people; that requires us to have capabilities in this field.

[…]

As the nation that developed the Internet, the world expects us to ensure that the digital revolution works as a tool for individual empowerment, not government control.  Having faced down the dangers of totalitarianism and fascism and communism, the world expects us to stand up for the principle that every person has the right to think and write and form relationships freely — because individual freedom is the wellspring of human progress.

Those values make us who we are.  And because of the strength of our own democracy, we should not shy away from high expectations.  For more than two centuries, our Constitution has weathered every type of change because we have been willing to defend it, and because we have been willing to question the actions that have been taken in its defense.  Today is no different.  I believe we can meet high expectations.  Together, let us chart a way forward that secures the life of our nation while preserving the liberties that make our nation worth fighting for.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, President Obama calls 2014 a year of action, which should start with Congress quickly passing emergency unemployment insurance for the 1.3 million Americans who lost this vital lifeline as they fight to find jobs and make ends meet.